The Reds trailed by three goals at the break and then 4-0 and 5-1 during the second half of Wednesday’s tie at St Helens Stadium.

A flourish towards the end saw substitute Cornelia Kapocs add two more goals to her earlier strike to complete a clinical hat-trick.

But head coach Taylor expressed the disappointment with the nature of conceding ‘really, really cheaply’ that allowed United to take the points.

“We gave away too many goals,” he said post-match.

“We knew that we had to make changes because we haven’t got the squad to be able to turn the game around quickly like that for us on Sunday, but also the risk of injury to the likes of Beata [Olsson].

“It’s really difficult. We know and I’ve said the same to the players out there in the huddle: we can’t look like that because we’re going to need you.

“It felt like four of the five goals we gave away were giveaways, not necessarily anything United have done better than us.

“You could just see tonight that at times there was a gulf between the two teams. We had our moments, Cornelia came on and again you can see is an important player and the gulf between the levels with some of the players on the pitch tonight and weren’t on the pitch.

“We had to make changes to protect the likes of Fisky [Grace Fisk]. Just a difficult night for us.”

Taylor continued: “It’s a mad scoreline, isn’t it? The competition throws those up, it’s a bit crazy. It seems like teams throw caution to the wind a little bit with their defending.

“But, like I say, no excuses from us. We weren’t good enough.

“We gave away four out of the five goals really, really cheaply. Maybe even five of them. And you just can’t do that against any team, let alone United.”