George Kelly says Carlisle United have plenty to learn from their opening day defeat to Worthing, but insists there is no loss of confidence within the squad ahead of next weekend's trip to Yeovil Town.
Kelly scored twice for the Blues, but United ultimately fell to a 3-2 defeat at Brunton Park despite dominating large spells of the contest.
The striker admitted the result was difficult to take after Carlisle had been in control for much of the first-half.
He said: "Yeah, [it was] a tough one to take.
"I think we probably should have capitalised and scored a few more, especially in the first-half when we were completely on top.
"But we just leaked goals a little bit too easily and then came off [it] a little bit in the middle third of the game.
"So, disappointing. But we'll learn from this fairly quickly, hopefully."
Despite the frustration of surrendering a strong position, Kelly believes the squad can use the experience to improve during the week ahead.
"These things are messy and complicated, but we'll figure it out first thing Monday morning.
"We'll have a good week's work and get on top of what we need to do."
The forward also admitted Carlisle needed to be more clinical when they had control of the game, including himself.
"It is frustrating for everyone.
"We just need to be a bit more clinical, me included, and take chances and put teams away when we have our foot on their necks and not let momentum shift as easily.
"So that's the disappointing thing."
Kelly's two goals provided a personal highlight, but the striker was quick to put the team's result ahead of his own individual performance.
"Yeah, but who cares?"
With the first competitive fixture now providing a clearer indication of where the team needs to improve, Kelly believes there will be plenty for the squad and coaching staff to analyse.
"Pre-season games are kind of hard to analyse. The tempo's a little bit flatter.
"It's only when you come to the actual season, in front of the crowd, in front of a big crowd and with the nervousness and the energy, that you actually find out what you're really made of.
"So there'll be a lot of learnings, a lot of work for the analysis and stuff.
"This week, we'll go through that and see where we need to be better, because we definitely do need to be better in a lot of areas. But we will be."
Despite the disappointment of the opening day result, Kelly insists there has been no dent to the squad's confidence.
"Oh yeah, there's no hit to anyone's confidence here.
"We just need to figure out a couple of little things. There's not much wrong here.
"There's a couple of tiny little tweaks and we'll be right back at it and figure things out come next week."
