ARGYLE Head Coach Paul Mariner is refusing to wave the white flag after a cruel defeat to relegation rivals Reading.

A controversial injury-time penalty from Shane Long gave the Royals a scarcely deserved 2-1 victory, which leaves the Pilgrims nine points from safety.

After a disappointing first period in which the home side dominated, Mariner introduced Craig Noone and Kenny Cooper, which shifted the momentum and Argyle were unlucky to fall behind to a Long strike. Carl Fletcher dedservedly restored parity before Long snatched all three points.

"If there are any white flags being flown, they're not in our dressing room," said Mariner.

"The whole point about this league is that it's not daunting. Are we going to throw the towel in with 20-odd games to go?

"There is an incredible amount of football to be played and you look at the fixtures, and Reading have got some difficult games coming up, so who knows. You just don't know in this league. It's very difficult to predict and I suppose that's why the fans love it.

"Newcastle got done tonight [3-0 at Derby] and that's why this is the fourth most popular league in the world.

"It's a very difficult pill to swallow, especially once we'd got back into the game.

"We didn't play very well first-half and Reading were very bright. We changed it in the second-half and thought we'd probably done enough to get a point, but obviously not.

"We had a very tough game on Saturday against West Bromwich and everybody in football knows the state of our field at the present moment is very draining on the legs, so we came out a little bit flat today.

"We were careful with what we did this week and before the game. Coming out flat is not like us, so we felt we had to try and improve things, and freshen it up, and it worked to a certain degree.

"When you're down at this end of the table, we thought a couple of things in the box didn't go our way.

"There was a hole in the left-hand side of our back four [for the first goal], which shouldn't have appeared. It was an extremely poor goal from our point of view."

Fletcher's equaliser came after Chris Clark and Cooper both threatened to score, and Mariner was full of admiration for his skipper..

"We had a couple of bites at it, so you're always thinking that it's not going to go in," he said.

"There's a reason why Carl Fletcher is captain of this team and you can see it with his fighting qualities. He took it on himself to drive into the box and the keeper didn't have a chance.

"I honestly thought we could have gone on to win it. It was nip and tuck, and both teams were scratching around for an opportunity."