Boss Andy Sinton brushed off AFC Telford United’s Shropshire Senior Cup disappointment, insisting: “It’s way down the pecking order.”

An unfamiliar Telford line-up went down 1-0 to a Shrewsbury XI in the final at the Greenhous Meadow last night.

But Sinton, who was disappointed by a late ruling that stopped him fielding trialists, has his focus trained on the last game of the Blue Square Bet North season on Saturday – with Telford needing at least one point at home to Harrogate to seal second place.

“We went there to win but in terms of the pecking order this game ranks way down,” said Sinton.

“Saturday’s game is a bigger one than last night. Tuesday (a play-off semi-final first leg) is a far bigger game and I certainly won’t be losing sleep over last night.

“We were a bit short defensively,” he added. “We had a lad who has played in squad games who was going to play last night and I was led to believe by the Shropshire FA that he could.

“But the big boys down in London said we couldn’t. Read into that what you want — we’ve got two FAs and they can’t agree.”

Sinton also believes that last night’s crowd of just 401 was evidence that the Shropshire FA had got it wrong by scheduling the final in the last week of April.

Both sides are chasing promotion, with Telford’s play-off campaign starting next Tuesday while Shrewsbury are in the hunt for automatic promotion from League Two.

Last season’s Senior Cup final was played in November 2009 and attracted a crowd of 1,851.

“Two teams of the standard of Shrewsbury and Telford shouldn’t be playing in front of a crowd of 400 in a ground like theirs,” added Sinton.”Maybe the Shropshire FA have got to have a think about what they do the next time.”