Having beaten Lancaster City in the FA Trophy on Saturday, Mossley completed a four day double over the ‘county town’ side at Seel Park on Tuesday night.

Due to the current lengthy injury list Mossley bosses Band and Morrison had little choice but to name an unchanged starting line up for this Evo-stik League fixture. Lancaster meanwhile, started with the side that finished Saturday’s game.

An early Tom Ince effort apart, Lancaster were less effective as an attacking force than they had been four days earlier with the Mossley defence in great form, both centre backs McGrath and Horne in particular had great games.

Mossley took the lead just before the half hour mark with a splendidly worked goal. Ryan Hoipper played a precision through ball down the right channel, Andy Keogh spun off his marker and played a perfect pass into the path of top scorer Dougie Carroll who side footed a powerful shot into the roof of the net that gave City keeper Mike Hale no chance.

Much like Saturday’s encounter, both sides played at a high tempo but there were in reality few scoring chances at either end. Lancaster constantly finding the Mossley defence an immovable object while Mossley tended to play swiftly on the break. Carroll and Keogh causing their usual problems for the opposition defence while recent signing Luke McCarthy showed some clever touches in link up play.

Mossley opened the second half equally brightly and doubled the lead on 55 minutes.
This time it was Carroll who was the provider. Taking a great first touch from a long ball he sidestepped three challenges before playing a beautifully weighted pass into the path of midfielder John Bennett who burst through to finish confidently from ten yards.

Lancaster looked a spent force for some time after the goal but Mossley were wasteful with what chances came their way despite some neat and tidy approach play.

The visitors were given a glimmer of hope on 65 minutes when substitute Simon Wearing got the better of a challenge from Phil Drummond and drilled the ball into the bottom corner. However, that proved to be Lancaster’s only effort on target in the entire game.

Mossley had a great chance to wrap up the game moments later when Keogh broke on the right and stroked a low cross for Carroll to finish. However, the ball bobbled as it reached him and his shot flew over the bar.

The game saw only one further chance for either side when Mossley substitute Danny Broadbent went on a rampaging run leaving defenders in his wake before firing an angled drive narrowly wide.
The Lilywhites secured the points more comfortably than the scoreline suggests with a very solid performance, particularly late in the game when they restricted the visitors to nothing more than half chances and never looked in any real danger of conceding what would have been an undeserved equaliser.

Report by Wizard