Daisy Hill 1-0 Cheadle Town
<sigh>
All of the air pumped into the balloon from Wednesday evening's fantastic comeback at Eccleshall popped in the blink of an eye. One step forward, two steps back.
After a half-decent start we faded badly and never really recovered to get ourselves going again. Mis-placed passes, wrong choices and a general failure to keep hold of the ball amounted to a dolly mixture of frustration.
Whether Daisy Hill's penalty, midway through the first half, was a penalty was debated hard and long at the time, but even Danny Whiting's superb save ended up being in vain as the rebound was popped into the unguarded net. It was definitely that kind of a day.
Danny Whiting gets down to save the penalty....
The returning Mike Sherrington had the first chance, firing over after his brother Chris had directed a Liam Delaney pass into his path with Chris then almost connecting with a Tom Ratican cross, only to see a Daisy defender nipping in just in time.
Danny Whiting then made his first significant save of the day on 15 minutes before the hosts should have been 1-0 up shortly afterwards, firing over from the edge of the area with the goal at their mercy.
Joe Nield then brought an excellent save from the Daisy keeper after his fierce drive looked to be heading for the top corner before a great solo run brought about Daisy's penalty that might not have been a penalty.
Danny Wood
We responded straight away.
Chris Sherrington latched onto a loose ball in the area to bring out a great save before Sherrington (Michael version) was clean through on a lofted ball only for he to be denied by the keeper too.
Two super stops from Danny Whiting bookended the periods just before and just after half time, the second an impressive effort to tip over a looping header.
"Over there...."
The only significant efforts we had in the second half were round about the hour mark.
A nice combination of Dunn and Chris Sherrington gave substitute Danny Jones a chance but he lashed his effort wide before a James Dunn cross from the right was blasted wide by Joe Shaw.
To cap the day off there were chaotic scenes after the final whistle which resulted in two red cards for Daisy Hill players and a sore chin for Joe Nield. Work the rest out for yourselves.
Mssrs Harrison, Nield and Shaw
We're back in action again tonight [Monday] when Eccleshall visit Park Road. Time to pick up the pieces from this horror show and get back on track.
TEAM: Whiting, Nield, McLaughlin, Delaney (Dunn), Shaw, Harrison, Ratican, Russell, M Sherrington, Wood (Jones), C Sherrington (Farrow). SUBS: Jones, Dunn, Farrow, Piggott (gk).
