Skem down to the bare bones in heavy loss
TOMMY Lawson suffered his biggest defeat in eleven years as Skelmersdale manager, but the reasons were plain and simple.
Skelmersdale were forced to field a severely weakened team against a very good one.
With five enforced changes from the team that thumped Warrington Town 4-0 on Saturday, Skelmersdale had just 11 players plus a substitute that hasn’t played a game for over two years because of injury, and this was exacerbated when the substitute had to be used. The other reason is that Spennymoor are a very good team, look a strong bet to win the league and in hindsight would very likely have beaten a full-strength Skem team anyway.
After a fairly even start in which Spennymoor saw one effort saved by Martin Fearon it was a poor pass that gave the hosts their opening goal on 16 minutes - Craig Gott latching onto the ball before crossing low across the goalmouth from where Shane Henry shot low into the net.
The second goal on 24 minutes was a poor one from a Skelmersdale perspective, the defending wasn’t good, Henry being allowed to carry the ball from the centre-circle before his shot from 20 yards went into the bottom corner.
It took Spennymoor just 50 seconds of the second period to make it 3-0 with a goal that will have left Rob Bodie cursing his luck.
Martin Fearon made an initial save with a great dive to his left, the ball then after a block went up into the air, as it dropped Bodie had no choice other than volley clear, however, the ball went into the net.
Spennymoor made it 4-0 on 55 minutes and this arguably did have a bit of luck about it as a ferocious drive from Graeme Armstrong appeared from a distance to take quite a deflection as it shot into the top corner.
Henry completed his hat-trick on 61 minutes and was immediately withdrawn,
Later goals for Spennymoor came via David Dowson and Tom Craddock.
As far as the game went Skelmersdale can have no real complaints.