MATCH REPORT: Nantwich Town 1 v 0 COUNTY

By Chris Larkin

County's pre-season tour of Cheshire came to an end with another defeat on Saturday.

The Hatters took on Cheshire cousins Nantwich Town - once again trying out a handful of trialists in the match.

And there definitely seems to be a pattern emerging now with opponents playing in Green and White - they're County's kryptonite.

So, sticking to the norm for the pre-season, County started the game poorly, with a few decent runs and chances for the Dabbers.

One of the rare County attacks ended badly for trialist, Paris Bateman as he went down during a Sortie into the box. Physio Rodger Wylde scampered on to the pitch clearly worried about the player. And on-pitch treatment lasted for a good 10 minutes or so.

After-match reports indicate that unfortunate Bateman seemed to have broken a bone and is unlikely play again, certainly in pre-season. He was replaced by the impressive Ian Howard.

County did start to get into the game a bit more after Howard came on and a few decent attacking moves promised much but resulted in little - maybe the players apparent fear of shooting when on the edges of the box had something to do with that.

And so, inevitably, the first half petered out somewhat uneventfully.

Nantwich Town's winning penalty

Ian Craney came out of the half with much credit though, his passing and calmness on the ball is to be really admired and he could be crucial for the Hatters in the coming season.

The second half started similarly to the first, with Nantwich on top.

Within 10 minutes a silly foul from County trialist Ross Fisher saw the ref point to the spot to give Town a penalty, which the impressive Aaron Burns squeezed home despite a full stretch dive from Ian Ormson.

Just a minute later it appeared County had leveled as a flowing team move resulted in the ball crossing the goal-line. The linesman, though, had other ideas. And much to the displeasure of the County players, staff and fans alike the goal was chalked off.

In the dying minutes, County had a free-kick on the edge of the area which gave them a great chance to draw level.

But they took it quickly and wasted the chance when the referee waved play-on after a Nantwich interception.

Within seconds we had the best moment of a fairly dour encounter thanks to teenage County prodigy, Rhys Turner.

He picked up the ball from the Nantwich clearance, ghosted through a handful of Nantwich players and brilliantly unleashed an incredible piledriver of a shot and that smashed against the post. So unlucky.

The ball landed at the feet of County's forwards from Turner's drive though, and they obliged by putting the ball in the net only for the linesman to, once again, deny the Hatters a goal via the offside flag.

The game ended just a couple of minutes later and the team's tour of Cheshire saw County rack up one win and two losses.

Ian Bogie said after the game that he'd seen enough of the trialists to make a final call on their County futures. And, to be frank, it doesn't look like any of them will be getting good news from the gaffer.


Still, another game, another step closer to full match fitness for those players who are already signed up to next season's Conference North campaign.