HONEST Simon Francis admitted League One Burton “wanted it more” than Cherries in their Carabao Cup third round clash on Wednesday.

The club captain made his first appearance back in Eddie Howe’s side after nine months out following a serious knee injury.

But it was not a happy comeback for the skipper, who was taken off as a precaution after the floodlights failed three times, causing a delay in the 2-0 defeat at Pirelli Stadium.

Francis told the Daily Echo: “On a personal note, great to get back in the team after nine months out but it was certainly not the way I would have wanted it.

“Normally you want those to go down as a game and night to remember but (it was) for all the wrong reasons.

“It was a disappointing result, disappointing for our fans. I’m sorry to them, they had to travel a long way and it’s certainly not the result we wanted, not the performance we wanted and we are out of the cup.

“We have only got ourselves to blame. We weren’t at our best, nowhere near it.

“We were second best to a League One team who just wanted it more than us.”

Francis was replaced by Callum Wilson after 87 minutes of the clash with the Brewers – the delays did however mean 28 minutes of time was added on.

He added: “I would have loved to have played 90 minutes had it been just a normal game with no stop-start. But after the third time I made one sprint down the line and my hamstring started to tighten up.

“It’s just not ideal really, coming back from an ACL injury to be stopping and starting like that, it would have been nice to get in the full flow.

“The delays didn’t help but it’s the same for both teams. There were some strange rulings goings on I didn’t really understand.

“I was expecting for a fourth time the lights to turn off and the ref would call it a day but, as professionals, you have to be prepared for anything. Burton certainly were.

“Credit to them, they worked really hard. We just didn’t do the basics right.

“We didn’t keep the ball well enough, didn’t make the right passes or the right decisions and, for a strong team we put out, it just wasn’t good enough.”