Mossley’s hopes of a good run in this year’s Emirates FA Cup were quite literally washed away in dreadful weather conditions at Brocstedes Park on Saturday.

The rain was incessant throughout the day as was Ashton Athletic’s strike-force who scored seven goals to the Lilywhites two on an afternoon that everyone connected with the Lilywhites will quickly want to forget.

It all started badly for Mossley when Adam Gilchrist curled home a beauty from the edge of the box in Ashton’s first attack after just two minutes.

However, the Lilywhites battled back into the game and after Liam Flynn had made a good double save to deny Isaac Kusaloka, the Lilywhites found some rhythm on the partially waterlogged surface.

Ex Mossley keeper Martin Pearson performed heroics to keep out efforts by Tom Pratt and Mike Fish while Damase Kiwanda was causing the home defence all kinds of problems with his powerful pacey runs on the left.

Mossley deserved their 37th minute equaliser when Mike Fish was dragged back at a corner and Kyle McGonigle slammed home from the penalty spot and the good contingent of travelling Lilywhites fans would have certainly fancied Mossley’s chances at this stage.

However, it all started to go seriously wrong in the last three minutes of the first half as firstly Gilchrist put the home side back in front and then they were awarded a highly dubious penalty when Flynn seemed to save well at the feet of Danny Regan on the dead ball line only for the referee to award Ashton a spot kick which Joel Brownhill fired home to leave Mossley 3-1 down at the break.

Mossley opened the second half in determined fashion and five minutes in Ryan Barrow squared to Andy Keogh who’s effort from the edge of the box nestled in the bottom corner. 3-2, game on.

That should have been the spark Mossley needed to push on for an equaliser but within two minutes the two goal gap was opened again as Sam Bailey was given too much room to score an easy goal.

Mossley threw caution to the wind as Dougie Carroll twice came close. Firstly with Pearson saving at his feet and then clipping the bar with another effort, but Mossley were constantly in danger of being hit on the counter attack and so it proved. On 76 minutes a long through ball stuck in a puddle and Kusaloka got to the ball before Flynn to open a three goal gap.

With the result now beyond doubt the beleaguered Mossley defence was breached twice more. Gilchrist completed his hat-trick on 85 minutes after a clearing header had only found another puddle and in the last minute Kusaloka added a another to send the ‘underdogs’ into seventh heaven and Mossley crashing out of the cup.

Wiz

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