Ex-England star in crowd as Morpeth bow out of FA Trophy

The former England, Newcastle United and Liverpool ace popped in to Borough Park ahead of an evening talk in west Cumbria.

He saw the amber and black play all the football and get themselves ahead before the more direct Workington responded deep in the second half.

It was tough luck on a Town side who travelled with just three subs again, and boss Craig Lynch was left ‘dumbfounded’ by the defeat.

“Mark Fell’s (Workington manager) teams are always going to be robust, fast, forward teams, that’s the way they play and we knew that, but some of our stuff in the first half was brilliant. We’ve passed and moved it, created chances and did things that we speak about,” he said.

Some nice one-touch play down the right in the 14th minute saw Fenton John coast inside and roll a ball into Jack Foalle who calmly tucked away the opener from just inside the box.

Morpeth almost made it two just before the break when John’s low cross was touched on by Foalle and Nic Bollado slotted home, but the flag was raised.

“We heard them getting a bollocking at half time and regardless of that we knew the intensity levels were going to be high and they were going to put us under pressure more. We knew what we had to do, and we’ve just done the complete opposite,” continued Lynch.

The Reds levelled shortly after the hour as a powerful Dav Symington effort came back off the post kindly into the path of Steven Rigg, who fired home low first time.

Morpeth had a couple of chances at the other end with John or Foalle just unable to put away Bollado’s pull back and when Luke James teed up Bollado his drive flew into the side-netting.

Tom Stephenson capitalised on a mistake at the back for Jake Allen to tuck away Workington’s second in the 85th minute and they added a third with two minutes to go as Josh Galloway’s ball over the top was slammed in by former Carlisle man Rigg.

“I know it’s a cliché a game of two halves, but the majority of the team were a different team second half and it was really disappointing to see because in the first half there wasn’t much I could disagree with,” said the boss.

Lynch said the result was ‘a massive wake-up call’ ahead of the visits to Craik Park of Ilkeston on Tuesday night and Whitby on Saturday in the NPL Premier.