JEFF Wood summed it up nicely when I asked if Albion had suffered any injuries.

"Just broken hearts and bruised egos", he replied with a rueful smile.

The same players who showed such spirit to draw at Swansea were too atrocious for words as they slumped to a damaging seventh defeat out of 15 at the Priestfield Stadium.

It took them 73 minutes of mindboggling ineptitude to muster their only worthwhile effort on goal.

Andy Arnott's header was cleared off the line by Graham Power, but frankly it would have been criminal if Albion had got anything out of this match.

Darren Rowbotham returned to the Exeter attack to wreck them again.

The visitors' top scorer for the past two seasons had been out of favour after a lean patch and the arrival of Brian Quailey on loan from West Brom.

Peter Fox's decision to recall him was rewarded when Rowbotham turned in Chris Fry's volley, his 100th League goal for the club.

Rowbotham, now in his benefit year with the West Countrymen, struck twice when Exeter won 3-1 in the corresponding fixture last season. They had managed just one victory in 36 away matches since then, but a second was rarely in doubt.

Albion were so awful in the opening 45 minutes that they hardly ventured outside their own half. Former boxer Steve Flack had a goal disallowed for offside and the only surprise was Exeter's failure to land a knockout blow.

Silly bookings for Ian Culverhouse and Paul Sturgess, invoking automatic one-match bans, added to the misery. It surely couldn't get any worse, but it did.

Once Rowbotham had broken the deadlock Gary Hart's fiesty streak got the better of him. Needless retaliation to an untidy challenge by Chris Holloway was followed just four minutes later by a foul on Lee Baddeley.

Hart's red card means he joins Culverhouse and Sturgess on the sidelines for the visit of bogey side Leyton Orient on Saturday week.

The crowd took their frustration out on referee Andy D'Urso. The Billericay banker was poor, but not as poor as Albion.

What is it about Exeter which brings out the worst in them? They were even more abject than when they lost by the same score at the other St James's Park in September.

History is hopefully not about to repeat itself. The Seagulls lost the four matches after that as well, against Southend, Orient, Scunthorpe and Cardiff, and they just happen to be their next four opponents.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.