Mossley (White & Black)

Colwyn Bay (Orange & Black)

 

The saying goes that those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it and it's a lesson that, not for the first time, Mossley learnt to their cost on another rain soaked afternoon at Seel Park.

On their way to a 6 – 1 win in the corresponding fixture between the two sides on the North Wales coast back in January, Colwyn Bay had raced into a three goal lead within the first twenty five minutes of the match through a combination of good attacking football and error strewn defending by the visitors.

The location and weather might have been different but two and a half months on it was exactly the same story.

The match was only five minutes old when keeper James Mann swung a kick at and missed a back pass which allowed Rob Hopley the chance to help the ball over a submerged goal line.

Mann more than atoned for his lapse by pulling off a string of good saves to keep Mossley in the game but he could do little to stop the Seagulls from doubling their lead.  A slip on the halfway line by Simon Wood gifted the ball to Eddie Jebb who, after making his way unchallenged to the edge of the box, played a sweeping pass across the penalty area that ran perfectly into the path of Hopley who finished clinically from eight yards out.

The third goal arrived a minute later when Tim Brandreth, probably Bay's most dangerous threat at set-pieces, was allowed to head home a corner a completely unmarked and in doing so effectively won the game with just under three quarters of it still left to play.

That's not to say that Mossley didn't have chances of their own in the first forty five minutes.  Things might have been different had efforts from Lee Blackshaw and Michael Fish, which sandwiched Hopley's opening goal, not been headed wide of the uprights; opportunities which at the very least should have forced Bay keeper Chris Sanna to sweat to little. 

With the game effectively over the second half was for the most part nothing more than a clock watching exercise for all involved.

A series of substitutions eventually saw Mossley regain a bit of fighting spirit and a forceful run from one of the replacements was rewarded when Ben Richardson's long range shot took a deflection off a Bay player that looped it over the under worked Sanna and into the net.

The foundations for a dramatic late comeback however weren't built on and the Lilywhites penultimate home fixture of the season, like many recently, ended in a depressing and deserved defeat.

Report by SJNR

pics by Aaron Flanagan