Morpeth Town handed wake-up call

The Morpeth Town manager was left disappointed by a second-half showing against Lancaster City at Craik Park last time out that he described as ‘hoof ball.’

While it took a stunning Aaron Bennett strike to put the Dolly Blues ahead, Lynch said they knew what to expect and that the performance in the second 45 was ‘hard to watch.’

“It’s not often I apologise to the fans because I always back our lads, but that second half was really, really poor,” he said.

“It was just hoof ball, and that’s not me. I don’t mind a long pass because that’s part of football and a long pass can be a good pass. But we weren’t aggressive with the ball, we didn’t play, we’re hoofing it, we’re not looking to get on the ball – it happens, we’re not robots, and sometimes you need a wake-up call,” he continued.

Bennett chested down a long ball and hit a dipping volley from the right angle of the box over Dan Langley into the top corner in the 75th minute for the opener.

Charlie Bailey was instrumental in City’s second deep into stoppage time as he squared a low ball across the six-yard box that was deflected into the net off an unlucky defender’s shins at close range.

“We knew what he (Bennett) was about and spoke about him before the game,” continued Lynch.

“He scored a hat-trick of worldies last week and he’s scored a worldy again today. It’s nothing new to us that we’ve seen from City. We spoke about it at 2pm and again at 3.45pm.”

Leon Gibson-Booth chipped into the box and Luke James’s resultant glancing header was held by City keeper Andre Mendes, who again denied the striker after a neat interchange between Will Dowling and Jordan Hickey as the Highwaymen edged an even opening period.

“I thought we were good without scoring in the first half. We were comfortable, they didn’t really cause us any problems, we were playing to our strengths and their weaknesses. We’ve gone in 0-0 and it gives them a chance to regroup, which they did,” said Lynch.

New loanee Evan McGowan, who has signed from South Shields until 2nd January, came off the bench to make his debut in an amber and black shirt.