FA Cup 1st round replay, The Shay, Tuesday 20 November 2018, 7.45pm.

Att – 1200, with 282 from Morecambe

Shrimps – Halstead Mills Conlan Lavelle Old Wildig c Cranston Mandeville Oates Leitch-Smith Oliver, subs used Tutte for Cranston 57, Oswell for Wildig 77, Ellison for Oates 86.

Shaymen – Johnson Sellers Clarke Brown c Staunton Kosylo King Southwell Preston Maher Hanson, subs used Edwards for Southwell 86, Odelusi for Preston 90.

Ref – Martin Coy – Let the game flow when he could in difficult conditions.

Pitch – flat, lush and green, weather was bitterly cold, windy and sleeting all game.

Yellow  cards, Cranston 54.

So where do we start? Another missed opportunity with a juicy second round tie beckoning with TV money being dangled in front of us, but we come up short and blow it.

Halifax deserved to win, they wanted it more from the first minute, and chased and harried when they didn’t have the ball and were positive and industrious when they did.

Towns full back Sellers tested Halstead early on with a long range effort, Cranston replied with our only effort on target all evening on 6 minutes. Johnson was happy to push it away for a corner.  A clearance was chased by King who seemed to anticipate the bounce as Shrimps dithered, he made ground into the right of the box, stepped over and shot across Halstead to open the scoring on 11 minutes.

A corner was swung in which Halstead had to tap onto the bar for another corner on 21, Morecambe broke out and a neat passing move resulted in an Ajay shot being charged down. Within a minute the Yorkshire side thought they had doubled their lead. A long range header after a slick free kick move was parried and Kosylo reacted quickly to shoot home, but the female lines person had her flag raised, luckily for us. Halifax continued to show the more adventure, Kosylo exchanging passes with Preston before forcing another save from Halstead. Maher was next to try his luck from distance, again Halstead parried for another corner. If we got in at half time only one down it was damage limitation. A late rally saw a good corner cleared to Wildig who set up Old, his shot hit Wildig on the ankle as the half time whistle blew.

The second half opened with a diving  header from Shaymen skipper Brown narrowly wide but from then on the Shrimps took control of the ball without controlling the game. Tutte replaced Cranston on 57, and soon we had our best chance of the night. Conlan and Mandy swapped passes to get Conlan in behind, his pull back was perfect for Wildig 12 yards out, he had bodies in the way but couldn’t plot a path through them and the shot was blocked on 66. Oates was now running at will at the home defence with some effect, he had a shot just over and then released Mills whose low cross evaded everyone, it was crying out for someone committing at the back post and it was tap in. Oliver had a shot deflected wide, bizarrely for a goal kick before Away wriggled free in the box but couldn’t get his shot on target after 84 mins. Oswell headed wide from a free kick as time ticked away. The final chance falling to King Kev, who turned and volleyed just wide in the 93rd minute.

Halifax lined up 4-4-1-1 in the second period and we just didn’t have the guile or calmness to create a clear cut chance against a spirited home side.

So they claim the money and the home tie in Round 2 with the Wombles, they deserved to on the night. they were first to most loose balls and generally wanted it that bit more.

League is all we have, onwards after a bad night!

Freez