RICKY Spain admitted fitness told after Lingfield went out of the Surrey Senior Cup 3-1 after extra time at Chisptead on Tuesday night, despite a stunning strike from him after less than half a minute.

The midfielder saw Chipstead keeper Dean Rose off his line and, with only three players having touched the ball, chipped him from 35 yards.

On an increasingly freezing night, it took Chipstead 80 minutes to find a reply through Scott Simpson, sending the third round tie into extra-time.

Lingfield were eventually beaten when Sean Rivers scored a looping header from Scott Simpson's cross and then converted a last-gasp penalty when Adam Woodward was undone by Ray Freeman's tricking.

Rivers stepped up to score his 11th strike in 10 games for the hosts, who now face Colliers Wood or Egham, with the winners likely to host AFC Wimbledon.

Spain said he took his goal when the ball "just came nicely. I just took the ball where it fell and saw the keeper off his line. It was a great start because we've been starting games slowly recently. It's a shame we couldn't hold it. In the second half we started going long, so they won the battle in midfield and mixed it up.

"In the end the fitness showed."

Lingfield host Seaford in the Sussex County RUR Charity Cup third round on Saturday and Spain added: "It's another cup game and hopefully we can have a good run. We had one in the FA Cup."

Assistant manager, Steve Perkins Snr, said: "We just ran out of legs. For the first 30 minutes Chipstead didn't kick the ball. The penalty miss would have made it 2-0 and we would probably have won.

"We'll take heart from the first half performance. You come to a place like this and you always want to give it a good go because it's good to pit yourself against a Ryman side because they are the next level up. We've lost a couple of players [since Tony Beckingham quit as manager] but hopefully we'll bring a couple in. We've signed a couple of the older boys back just in case and we could still get a few."