A mixture of poor finishing and some eccentric refereeing denied Mossley at least a share of the spoils in Saturday’s solitary goal defeat by second placed Ossett Town at Ingfield on Saturday.

The Mossley line up had one enforced change to the starting line from the team that had won it’s three previous outings with Danny McDonnell replacing the unwell James Blair at right back.

Mossley had a couple of ‘hairy’ moments early on as keeper Niki-Lee Bulmer made a couple of mistakes which he did well to rectify as the game wore on.

On a poor playing surface flowing football was near impossible but it was Mossley who began to look the more threatening and it was the Lilywhites who had the best chances of the opening half.

Andy Keogh and Mike Fish were both denied by good saves by home keeper Leigh Overton and Sam Robinson had probably the best chance but screwed his shot on the turn narrowly wide from a great position. At the other end Bulmer was called upon to make a good diving save to deny home skipper Alex Patterson.

The decisive goal came early in the second half. Young left back Callum Scullion sliced a clearance on the tricky surface and the ball broke to the lively Patterson who picked his spot placing the ball into the far corner beyond Bulmer’s reach.

Mossley worked hard to try and recover the goal throughout the remainder of the game but were denied by some fine goalkeeping by Overton and several wasted chances, not aided by referee Mr Whatling who chose to award Ossett free kicks at every opportunity while denying Mossley two strong penalty claims and even played on when Mike Fish was brought down from behind when clean through on goal.

Mr Whatling also managed to show a total of seven yellow cards in a game which certainly did not warrant such overly zealous actions.

Wiz