ANDY Preece wants to see the use of the elbow in football punished by more than a standard three-match ban.

Dennis Pearce suffered a broken nose after being caught off the ball by Ryan Zico Black in Worcester City's 5-2 FA Trophy victory at Barrow last night.

The Barrow player was shown a straight red card but City player-boss Preece believes the suspension is too lenient.

"It was just a blatant elbow off the ball, he's broken Dennis' nose," Preece said. "What can you say about it? We all have rushes of blood so I'm not going to condemn him but it was a nasty one and the ref had no option but to make that decision.

"I think deliberate elbowing should have a longer ban than the three matches for a normal sending-off because that is going to do serious damage. Luckily, it's caught him right in the middle of the face and not on any pressure points or in his eye.

"There's no room for it in the game of football. Barrow have had their problems and it must be the last thing they wanted to see happen.

"I think three games is nowhere near enough for that sort of challenge."

However, the manager was pleased his side eventually did enough to win the tie, a match which also saw loan signing Sam Wedgbury sustain a dead leg, and set up a second round clash at home to Burton Albion on January 13.

Preece, whose team win £4,000 for progressing, said: "Barrow is very hostile, it's one of the most hostile places to go and play.

"It was a good result in the end but I thought we made it a lot harder for ourselves than we should have. Being 1-0 up and playing against 10 men, we should have been able to see the game through.

"I thought the first-half performance was poor and not of the standard I would expect from our players. I was disappointed in the way we went about the game, especially when we went 1-0 up against 10 men, the game should have been comfortable. I was a little bit disappointed with the way we played and I know we can do a lot better.

"We changed things around a bit in the second-half and it seemed to work although we made hard work of it. We got ourselves in front again and then conceded against 10 men to put ourselves under pressure again.

"By the end of the game I was a lot happier than I was at half-time. It looks nice in the end, 5-2 looks comfortable but it doesn't tell the whole story."

Preece was also happy to see striker Adam Webster make his first appearance since being stretchered out of the Kidderminster Harriers pre-season fixture with ankle ligament damage.

"Webby getting on to the field was a massive bonus for us," he said. "It's great to see him just back on the football field. It was such a bad injury you are not quite sure how he's going to heal.

"He's not totally back now, those were his first minutes of competitive football, he's not even played a reserve game.

"I am just pleased to see him back and hopefully he can get a good run-out in the reserve game at Nuneaton tomorrow night and be fit for selection again when we come to the Kettering game."