Every Wednesday in the Herald Express, our Torquay United correspondent Richard Hughes takes a sideways look at what's going on in the world of the Gulls. This week, he reflects of the exit from the FA Trophy

I am coming down firmly on the side of the fence that couldn’t care less about the FA Trophy this season. There are much more important things at stake. The FA Trophy is a competition that some teams have won and then looked at their bank balances and found it has cost them more to take part than they have won.

Torquay got to the final and lost to Ebbsfleet United in the 2007-08 season when they were knocked out of the Blue Square Conference play-offs by Exeter City. When Torquay was knocked out of the Trophy in 2008 by Southport the team went on to win the play-off final at Wembley. Gary Johnson’s National South champions of the 2018-19 season went out at the first hurdle.

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Mikey P, my friend and sometime drinking buddy when he’s not working up there in that there London, texted me to say Torquay should be in the competition for its ‘prestige’. But the only ‘prestige’ I am after this season is the prestige of winning the National League South and promotion back to the National League.

Still, it was a surprise when Paul Wotton named a team without a striker in it. What the heck? Even Dom on Torquay United radio was moved to ask, had the club ever played a game with a false No 9? I know Omar Mussa, supported by a phalanx of midfielders was supposed to be the man furthest forward, but it didn’t work, and at 4-0 down at half time, the game was over all the bar the shouting, and there wasn’t even much of that.

Mo Faal is the striker that had an onside goal disallowed by the referee when Worthing lost 2-1 at Plainmoor earlier in the season. He will have enjoyed his first-half hat-trick, but in fairness, he didn’t have to work too hard to get it – Torquay were that poor. Wotton was forced to throw on the three players he had chosen to rest for the second half and Jordan Young scored a great free-kick, but that was the best it was going to be for the Gulls and the excellent Danny Cashman’s late goal to make it 5-1 was just another slap in the face.

I asked Wotton whether he thought a good run in the Trophy this year might have impacted on the league form? “I suppose we will never know,” he replied. “The New Year’s Day game took a hell of a lot out of us. It was obviously a very tough game against Truro with high emotions with the big crowd and so on – and then to have to travel to Worthing two days later, who are a very good team in our league, it was a horrendous tie for us really after thinking we were playing Gosport.

“As soon as we knew Gosport had played an ineligible player, everything about it didn’t feel right to be honest with you. It was all up in the air. We knew there would be a strong chance of playing Worthing but it wasn’t confirmed until New Year’s Eve.”

Wotton wasn’t really making excuses for the performance, but now Torquay are out of the FA Cup, FA Trophy, and even the Devon Bowl, there is only one target to aim for in 2025 – and that’s the top spot in the National South.

But hey – let’s try to avoid those play-offs. They would feel too much like a cup competition, and this isn’t the season for them.