No excuses and a penalty gripe ... Matt Hamshaw reacts to his first defeat as Rotherham United boss

After three straight wins under their new boss, the mid-table Millers were beaten by League One promotion contenders Stockport County at Edgeley Park.

It was the fourth match in 12 days for Rotherham who have six senior players out of action, but Hamshaw decided against using either of those facts as a reason for the 3-1 loss.

“It's easy to talk about the amount of games and the injuries but I'm not going to,” he said. “In moments in the second half, we just had to be a little bit better than we were.

“That will come with time. We're playing a team who are fourth with a lot of quality and a lot of confidence. We haven't had the time on the training ground to affect certain situations in a game

“First half, we started really well. I spoke to the players at half-time because I thought we got a little bit complacent on some of the things we'd spoken about and stopped doing them. We knew that, second half, there would be a Stockport reaction.”

The Millers took an early lead with a Mallik Wilks header but were pegged back before the break when Jack Diamond scored from 20-plus yards and then fell further behind after the interval to goals from Brad Hills and Kyle Wootton.

The big turning point came when Hamshaw's men were 2-1 down and Devon referee Lee Swabey rejected appeals for a spot-kick when Wilks tumbled in the box.

Stockport went straight down to the other end and Wotton shot low into the net to seal the home team's triumph.

“For me, it should have been a penalty and 2-2,” Hamshaw said. “I've been told (by the officials) that not every contact in the box is a penalty.

“Even if it's not, we had Sam Nombe waiting for a slide across from Mallik and a tap-in.”

The manager thought the referee gave a poor performance, saying: “It's hard for me to comment on other decisions because I'd be here for three days.

“It is what it is. Sometimes you're on the right end of things, sometimes you're not.”

At 3-1 down, Rotherham had to chase the game and suffered as a result of their lack of options on the bench where they had three centre-forwards, two young centre-halves and only one midfield man.

“We got a little bit spread out as a team – that's on me, by the way,” he said. “We had five centre-forwards on, virtually no midfield and five at the back. You can't get back into games like that, you can't retain possession.”

The boss now has a week to work with his squad before the Good Friday visit of Mansfield Town.