Huddersfield Town are edging closer to the beach in League One - but this is why Jon Stead still believes

As the pendulum swung back and forth in a pulsating 3-3 draw with the Chairboys, fans were treated to the pleasant and the pretty and the downright indefensible. For the bulk of the 105-minute affair, fans were treated to the former.

Yet Huddersfield were again their own worst enemies, hoisting their own petard to undo solid work.

"There were a couple of moments in and amongst that which have cost us,” conceded co-interim boss Jon Stead. “But on the whole, to a man, what you ask of players, they've gone and delivered it.

"I can't pick a fault with anybody. I thought, to a man, there were some really good performances out there and again, the frustration for me is that they haven't got the reward for it.

"I know I keep going back to it, but I'm just gutted for them. I really think they deserved the rewards for what they did.”

Story of the game

It was made to be more of a battle than it ever needed to be before half-time. Wycombe should simply not have been able to defend a long throw and immediately send Nathan Lowe away on a one-man counter-attack with only Bali Mumba in close pursuit. Huddersfield’s left wing-back was outbattled and against the run of play, it was advantage Chairboys.

Fans then saw the flip side of the Huddersfield coin. Ryan Ledson blasted home a peach of a half-volley before a swift and slick attack resulted in Marcus Harness prodding the hosts ahead.

A more mature - and perhaps most crucially a more confident side - would have managed the game effectively with 15 minutes of normal time remaining. Instead, the Terriers looked scattered and did not appear to be helped by substitutions that disrupted the rhythm.

Between the 90th minute and the 11th minute of stoppage, Wycombe equalised twice either side of tidy finish from Harness, with Connor Taylor getting in on the act and Lowe bagging his second.

“It's moments,” said Stead. “It's little lapses in concentration under fatigue, under stress.

"We need to stand up to those moments better. Again, we'll reassess, we'll look at set-ups, but the set-ups have changed all season. There's been different structure behind it and we've had the same sort of results.

"We'll pick the bones out of that again but at the end of the day, we need to be better individually and collectively at just doing your job. Sometimes, it just boils down to that.”

Huddersfield Town not ready to concede

Stead and Martin Drury, in position on a temporary basis with head coach Liam Manning on compassionate leave, are the latest figures looking to find solutions for what is often incomprehensible.

Had they gone and spoken to former Terriers boss Michael Duff in the Wycombe dugout, they would have had the sympathy of someone who knows exactly how tough it is to fix the curse of naivety that is seemingly plaguing HD1.

They would also be understood by Lee Grant, Jon Worthington and Andre Breitenreiter among others.

The scale of the post-match inquest will pale in significance to the one required in the summer but remarkably, Huddersfield have not driven themselves to the beach just yet.

With four games remaining, they are five points adrift of sixth-placed Stevenage having played one more game.

In the short-term, the temptation to start building sandcastles and riding donkeys must be ignored.

"Anybody that watches that can't say that we're ever going to concede,” insisted Stead. “That is a team that is fully invested, so we're going to get around them.

"We're going to pick them up a little bit because emotionally, that's tough. That's tough to take for any person, especially when you've put the effort in that they have on the pitch. We'll pick them up.

“They gave everything and anybody that's looking at that group and questioning whether they're all in or not needs their head shaking because they are fully in it.

"That's why it's so hard. That's why it's so emotionally exhausting because they deserve the reward for what they're doing and they didn't quite get it today and I feel for them.”

Managers often talk of belief but it is not always a simple concept to master. Frankly, there will be very few Huddersfield fans scoping out hotels in and around the Wembley area.

Stead, however, does not yet think the campaign is effectively over. There is of course every chance he is more pessimistic behind closed doors but Huddersfield owe it to their supporters, who are enduring yet another tough season, to scrap for a stunning late surge.

“I really do believe, if we continue playing like that, there's no reason why we can't go and win the rest of the games,” said Stead. “That puts us in an unbelievable position.”

Huddersfield Town: Nicholls (Alnwick 63), Balker, Roughan, Wallace; Gooch (Sorensen 73), Ledson (Kasumu 80), Humphreys (McGuane 69), Mumba; Harness; May (Charles 80), Radulovic.

Unused substitutes: Low, Evans.

Wycombe Wanderers: Norris, Huggins, Taylor, Allen, Harvie; Leahy, Morley (Henderson 80); Onyedinma (Harris 68), Woodrow (Fink 81), Vidigal (Quitirna 81); Lowe.

Unused substitutes: van Sas, Skura.

Referee: James Oldham (Derbyshire)