Barnoldswick Town 0 West Didsbury & Chorlton 3

AFTER the good 3-0 away win at AFC Blackpool on Thursday, Town were looking to move further up the table with a home win but once again they were without key players and it proved costly.

John Beckwith and Matt Cavanagh were all away playing cricket while Scott Moore, Jake McEneaney and Harry Thompson were all missing through injuries.

The visitors started the match the better with Jordan Gidley in the Town goal having to be alert to save a Ben Steer shot in the first five minutes.

Three minutes later the visitors took the lead, a through ball had Shaun Airey and Jonathan Poizer chasing after the ball. As the pair reached the edge of the Town penalty area Poizer toe poked the ball goalwards and it trickled just inside the post.

Town were struggling to get into the match, continually giving the ball away. The nearest they came was in the 25th minute when a Dalton Hutchison cross skimmed off the head of Matt Simpson and drifted past Hayden Buckley-Smith’s right hand post.

Two minutes later Simpson broke through and lobbed the ball over Buckley-Smith as he came charging off his line but the effort drifted agonisingly wide.

Town had a great chance to equalise two minutes before the break. Simpson found himself one on one with Buckley-Smith but rather than slide the ball on the ground past the keeper he elected to blast it and the keeper managed to tip it away.

Town missed another great chance at the start of the second half. Mark Threlfall bore down on the visitor’s goal but a combination of Buckley-Smith and Scott Mason managed to clear the ball to safety.

The visitors broke straight away to the other end, Poizer slipping a pass to Nic Evangelinos but he blasted the chance over the bar.

The visitors did increase their lead a minute later when a long pass out of the visitors defence was headed on to Evangelinos who took the ball on and easily scored.

Worse was to come for Town as Matthew Eckersley made it 3-0 minutes later when a corner was cleared just outside the Town penalty area and Eckersley hit it first time curling it through a ruck of players inside Godley’s right-hand post.

Town tried to get back into the game with Ben Gorman forcing Buckley-Smith into a good save just before the hour, but the nearest to a goal came from the visitors when Poizer saw his shot from the edge of the penalty area clip the bar.

Town couldn’t find a way through in fact it was Gidley who saw more of the action of the two keepers.

The defeat saw them drop down to tenth in the league table.