Morpeth Town on brink of relegation after narrow defeat to Rushall Olympic
Morpeth Town were beaten 1-0 by Rushall Olympic on Saturday afternoon.
Morpeth Town find themselves on the brink of relegation after suffering an agonising 1-0 defeat at the hands of Rushall Olympic on Saturday afternoon.
Craig Lynch’s men headed to Dales Lane in desperate need of a positive result, but came unstuck just after the hour-mark when a corner from the home side caused chaos in the penalty area, and was eventually poked up by Anthony Dwyer. In a further cruel twist, Town would then have a goal of their own ruled out for offside, with their hunt for an equaliser in the West Midlands ultimately proving fruitless.
As a consequence, Lynch’s side now find themselves three points adrift of safety with just one fixture left to contest, and while relegation is not mathematically assured, Morpeth will need to beat Warrington Town at home on Saturday afternoon and hope that both Prescot Cables lose to Bamber Bridge and Whitby Town lose to Cleethorpes in their respective matches. Furthermore, the Highwaymen will require a six-goal swing on both Prescott and Whitby in order to stay up on goal difference.
Reacting to his side’s loss to Rushall, Morpeth boss Lynch said: “We’re down near the bottom, not for performances, but for goals. That's what we've lacked... Today epitomised our season. We probably had better chances in the first half, lacked a bit of quality, lacked a bit of desire, a bit of belief, and that's why we are where we are -1-0 in it, but it was a free header from a set-piece, and nothing else really in the game.
“But you could say that for probably half our games this season, where we've not been outdone performance-wise, we've been outdone by scoring goals, and we've not scored enough. We've scored the least amount of goals in the league, and that's why we are where we are.”
He continued: “It's raw now, and it's going to take something unbelievable next week to stay up, but we've got to have that belief... It's been coming for weeks, and like I said, if our season was in a game, that would sum us up, really.”