Hereford were stuffed at Chesterfield on Monday night in their final game before the cup tie with Cardiff this weekend.
"In the end it was almost damage limitation and we started to get ready for our next match," said manager Graham Turner. "I couldn't see any way back into the game, that's the disappointing part about it. There was no spark there. We lost all our battles and all the individual confrontations - that's not us.
"As a manager I've been in it long enough to know it's the way you treat it. That's a one-off. It's highlighted one or two things we need to put right and we've got to start again on Sunday now. It's no good going overboard with that, we've got quite a number of young players in the side. We don't want to knock their confidence.
"We've got to take that one on the chin. We've got to say well played Chesterfield, we were awful. Let's start again on Sunday."
Hereford Utd v Cardiff City. Sunday, 12:30pm.