Linnets on verge of the drop
IT might have been a completely different story for Burscough when they made the trip to North Wales on Saturday, but it leaves them on the brink of relegation.
A 6-0 scoreline speaks for itself, but the opening 34 minutes were crucial to the outcome.
Burscough hit the post and the crossbar before Colwyn Bay had woken up, but when the hosts did awake in the 22nd minute they took precisely 12 minutes to kill off the Linnets’ hopes, scoring three times by the 34th minute amid some dreadful Burscough defending.
After 14 minutes Rob Doran beat everyone to a corner and his header hit the Colwyn Bay crossbar, then on 21 minutes, former Skelmersdale midfielder Tony Donaldson smashed a shot against the post with home goalkeeper Kieran Wolland well beaten as Burscough started out on the front foot.
However, it was another former Skelmersdale player, Jamie Rainford, that put Burscough on the road to ruin, playing a neat one-two with Ashley Mulholland on the Linnets’ 18 yard line before slotting low into the net, after Warren Bellew had started the move.
In the 32nd minute Mulholland romped into acres of space on the left before cutting inside a defender’s challenge and firing inside the near post to make it 2-0.
The previous scorers Mulholland and Rainford became providers after 34 minutes to present Danny Andrews with a tap-in, working the ball easily down the left-wing and pulling it back across goal.
Colwyn right-back Will Booth strode forward to end the game as a contest moments before the interval after Burscough struggled to clear the ball, driving a low shot from around 20 yards across the Linnets’ backline into the far corner to make it 4-0 at half-time.
It was 5-0 on 58 minutes as Rainford was allowed far too much time and space in the Burscough penalty area, he duly controlled the ball turned and put a clinical effort into the bottom corner from 15 yards.
Rainford completed his hat-trick four minutes from time, pouncing on a rebound after a Louis Corrigan corner wasn’t cleared properly.
If one of those early close things had gone into the net who knows what might have happened?