Daisy Hill’s attempted late comeback came too late as they fell to a 3-2 defeat at Darwen in the North West Counties First Division North on Saturday.
The Cutters were 3-0 down after 53 minutes and despite Liam Sheppard’s late brace they fell to defeat leaving manager Nicky Hunt disappointed at the performance.
“We didn’t deserve anything from the game,” said Hunt.
“We huffed and puffed until the last 10 minutes and injury time, and it was only from the 86th or 87th minute onwards that we were the better team.
“When you come to a place like Darwen, and go 1-0 down early on, and you’ve got your backs to the wall like we had, I thought it might have lifted us, and given us an inclination of going on the front foot and creating chances, but it didn’t.
“In the last two games, I thought we were all right defensively, and I thought we might have turned the corner, but we’ve just gone back to defending like we did in the early days when I took over.
“Their lads were getting free headers in the box and that can’t happen at any level, especially with the height and the strength and the power they have.
“We didn’t dominate the ball enough to test their full backs, and if we had we could have had a lot of joy and a lot of success
“The second half was a little bit better, and we started to get a bit more of a foothold on the game, and credit to our lads, we scored two goals, and strangely, we could have actually nicked another one at the end.
“Could we have had another penalty? Probably yes. But it’s by the by, and if we’d have taken a point here, it would have probably been the most undeserved point in North West Counties League history.
“We didn’t deserve anything, we didn’t get anything, and we need to move on to the next game against Ashton Town and eradicate this performance out of our memories.”
The Cutters got off to the worst part possible as two former Daisy players combined to put Darwen in front.
Gary Basterfield’s corner was glanced in by Nick Hepple to give Darwen the lead after only three minutes.
The Salmoners continued to put pressure on the Cutters and forced Jude Smith into action as he saved Hepple’s one-on-one effort with his feet.
Darwen doubled their lead 33 minutes in when Hepple whipped in a corner for the unmarked Nathan Bond to head in off the post.
The hosts continued to dominate as they entered half time and looked to build on their first-half performance in the second. And build on their dominance they did.
Darwen put themselves further ahead eight minutes into the second half through Josh Abbot.
Bruno De Almeida Severino powered down the right wing and past Daisy defenders into the box where he unselfishly squared the ball to Abbot to tap home for a 3-0 lead.
After going 3-0 behind the Cutters started to impose themselves on the match when Harry Forshaw raced in behind and crossed the ball over for Sheppard to tap in to put the Cutters on the scoreboard 71 minutes into the match.
With seven minutes of the 90 to play, Daisy again relied on Smith to keep them in the game as he parried Kit Lloyd’s shot out and luckily saw Bond’s follow-up header fly over the bar.
Deep into stoppage time, the Cutters were thrown a potential way back into the match as they were awarded a penalty due to handball.
Sheppard confidently stepped up and lashed the ball into the top-right corner to end the goalscoring for the match five minutes into stoppage time.
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