But the departure of Richie Foran on 50 minutes, with a suspected fractured cheek after taking a kick in the face from a Chukki Eribenne overhead kick, heralded a significant shift in the balance of the game.

Carlisle suddenly became incapable of holding up the ball in the final third, resulting in a build up of Bournemouth pressure, with three goals coming in the final thirty minutes, destroying all the good work in the first hour.

Such was the alarming shortage of fit personnel in the squad that Collins had to plead with Peter Keen and Peter Murphy to play, when common sense would have seen them on the treatment table.

Collins said after the game: “I would safely say that only three players in that team trained this week. We came down here and patched things up. I asked people to play who weren’t fit. Peter Murphy wasn’t fit and shouldn’t have played. Peter Keen shouldn’t have played. I asked these kids to play. So the first thing you’ve got to have is to be competitive, to roll their sleeves up. It’s away from home, it’s not going to be pretty but if we get something out of it we would take it. If you come down with the squad we came down with and think you’re going to pass the ball around and create six or seven chances and win the game, you’re living in dreamland.

“The injuries are just so frustrating and it’s really, really driving me round the bend. When you look at the situation when you need to change things around from the starting eleven but you haven’t got the players. I feel sorry for the lads. They can’t work any harder but when you’ve kids up front and right backs playing left back it’s just so hard.

“I need to get injured players back quickly and loan players in rapidly because I can’t put up with this much longer.”

The first half produced very little in the way of entertainment as the Cumbrians were content to nullify any creativity supplied by the home side, but Keen almost gifted an opening goal with a weak clearance on 24 minutes. Garreth O’Connor hit the loose ball first time but Keen’s blushes were saved when Michael Taylor stuck out a leg to block the goalbound effort. In a rare Carlisle attack Brian Wake curled a shot towards the top corner but Neil Moss made a stunning save.

The best chance of the half fell to Wake on 41 minutes when Brendan McGill’s perfect delivery from the left, found Wake unmarked but the former Tow Law man headed over.

The opening goal came on 61 minutes when Carl Fletcher’s lob forward was helped on by Alan Connell into space for Jason Tindall to shoot past Keen.

Six minutes later Will McDonagh should have pulled Carlisle level but his free header was straight at Moss.

The Cherries second came on 77 minutes when a Connell cross innocently struck Taylor on the arm, referee Cable harshly awarding a penalty, which Connell crashed home.

The third came with four minutes remaining when Eribenne ran clear on the left and found Brian Stock at the far post to side foot home.

In the last minute Peter Murphy scored a consolation goal for the Cumbrians, showing good control from a deep Freeman cross, before slotting past Moss.

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