'I told them at half-time it wasn't good enough' ... Rotherham United boss Paul Warne reacts to losing to Fleetwood Town

Millers v Fleetwood action. Picture by Kerrie Beddows

The boss told his players at the interval that they needed to up their performances to earn a result even though they were leading 2-1 at the time.

But the Millers went out and conceded three unanswered goals in the second half to slip to 13th place in the early League One rankings.

Warne made no excuses for the loss, saying his team were nowhere good enough in either half.

"I told the lads at half-time that we needed to raise our game because Fleetwood were going to come back at us," he said.

"The goals we conceded are hugely disappointing. We lost a little bit of belief in the second half."

After going behind to Callum Morton's opener, Rotherham led through a Michael Smith header and a Kieran Sadlier penalty before they were given the runaround down their left flank after the break.

Goals from Ged Garner, Danny Andrew and Callum Camps heaped misery on the home side.

"I thought we were pretty poor in the first half," Warne added. "The opposition slowed down the game and we got sucked into playing slowly as well.

"We had players walking to take throw-ins, which isn't really us. We didn't play with any drive.

"I haven't been critical of the team all season, but that was a poor performance, our worst of the campaign.

"We weren't fortunate to go in at half-time 2-1 up because we'd had the most chances but our overall play wasn't as good as I wanted it to be.

"As bad as were today, we still created enough chances and half-chances to get ourselves back in the game."

Fleetwood manager Simon Grayson said: "I’m immensely proud of the players. We had a couple who had to drop out at the last minute and the ones who came into the team showed the right attitude.

“We played well in the first half and knew we would be tested every minute of the game by long balls into the box.

“We were disappointed to go in 2-1 down at half-time but we didn’t feel sorry for ourselves and I knew we would get opportunities.

“We defended with our lives and looked a constant threat whenever we got the ball as well.”