Sandbach United 4-1 Cheadle Town
Damn you, half-time.
There we were, taking good care of ourselves, level at 1-1 and enjoying the lion's share of the ball when you had to come along and completely disrupt our momentum, so much so that our second half performance was as woeful as it gets thus allowing our opponents to run away with the match.
We started the first half terribly, allowing Sandbach's Jordan Davies to poke home under Whiting's body from the edge of the area after just two minutes but then got a real foothold, going so far as to earn ourselves a penalty just four minutes later.
Not for the first time this season the ultimate golden opportunity from twelve yards wasn't converted but you can't really blame Chris Sherrington; he drilled hard and low down to the corner but was thwarted by an excellent stop from the keeper.
Unperturbed we drove on. Rick Whyatt netted on 17 minutes after a clever knock-down by Luke Cotton but it was given as offside before Luke himself would draw us level ten minutes later, lashing home after a Pearson free-kick from the right had deflected into his path.
Two minutes later a superb cross-field pass from Liam Delaney found Callum Collinson on the right whose cross was narrowly clipped over by the onrushing Rick Whyatt before Rick got his head onto another cross just before half-time, heading just over this time around.
In the second half Sandbach really started to trouble us down their own right-hand side.
Danny Whiting had to palm away a whipped cross just three minutes into the restart with him then making a world-class stop to tip over a fierce drive from the edge of the area on the 55th minute.
On the hour mark Sandbach hit the post after cutting in from the right and leaving Whiting rooted to the spot with the shot with them then taking the lead just a minute later.
Sandbach's Jordan Davies went down the right and evaded a number of challenges, leaving him free to square the ball where Luke Walley was waiting for an easy tap-in.
With 75 minutes gone Sandbach got a penalty of their own which James Kirby slotted home.
Danny Whiting then had to beat away another drive from the right before a carbon-copy of Sandbach's second goal - same scorer and all - put the tie well-and-truly out of reach on 80 minutes.
Annoyingly we don't have a match this weekend to put things right. We'll just have to wait for the visit of Eccleshall next Wednesday evening. Rain, rain, stay away....
TEAM: Whiting, Nield, Pearson, Delaney, Shaw, Harrison, Collinson, Wood, Cotton, Whyatt, C Sherrington. SUBS: Gardiner, Ambrose, Dunn, Ratican, Allcock (gk).
