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STRONG IN DEFENCE . . . Athletic skipper Peter Clarke shows his mettle against Bolton. PICTURE by ALAN HOWARTH

BE like Peter - that's the stern message being sent out to Athletic's defence after another set-piece proved costly at Bolton.

Though Athletic trailed to an early Zach Clough free-kick, the awarding of which boss Stephen Robinson heavily disputed, the visitors at the Macron Stadium had plenty of the game without testing home goalkeeper Mark Howard too often.

It wasn't until the 77th-minute goal slammed home by Clough that the chance of getting at least a point disappeared, though.

And conceding such a goal from a corner kick was deeply frustrating for Robinson, who highlighted his skipper Peter Clarke as being the example to follow defensively.

"If you are not taking your chances then you have got to be 100-per-cent at the back," said Robinson, after a first defeat in three games in all competitions which sees Athletic slip to 22nd in Sky Bet League One.

"People have to defend like Peter Clarke defends - as if his life depends on it.

"There have been too many occasions where that hasn't happened. We have young boys who do make mistakes and it's something we have to live with. We don't have the opportunity to do anything about that.

"They will learn and I want to make it clear that Cameron Burgess has been outstanding for me - very, very good.

"But it's very frustrating when you come to one of the favourites for the league, play as well as we did, be backed by 2,000 people and see the result go against us.

"Our performance was good and we dominated the game. They had a 10-minute spell where they were on top and put a lot of balls into our box, but we had a large amount of chances.

"Paul Green had a few and Carl Winchester had three or four really good chances where he has to hit the target. We didn't take them and goals change games.

"We made two positive substitutions, bringing on Freddie Ladapo early and Cameron Dummigan, a more forward-thinking right-back, as well as Calaum Jahraldo-Martin.

"Then they scored from a set piece and again, a sloppy individual error, and it meant we were forced to chase the game."

Of those men who didn't play at Bolton, Lee Croft hurt his back in training on Friday and Ryan McLaughlin's slight thigh problem reared up again.

"Calaum did quite well when he came on and Carl was outstanding, so it wasn't wide areas that cost us," added Robinson.