AHERTON Colls go into tomorrow night's home game with Flixton still looking for a first win for new manager Chris O'Brien after five games at the helm.

On Saturday, "O'B" saw his side go down 5-2 at Curzon Ashton but the scoreline in no way reflected his team's contribution to the game.

"People will look at 5-2 and think we got hammered but that's not the case at all," said club press secretary Emile Anderson.

"It was just not as bad as it may sound. We played well in the first half but found ourselves 3-1 down.

"Just as we were set to really take it to them in the second half they went and scored a fourth virtually straight from the kick off."

He added: "We went on to have our best spell, really spraying the ball about nicely but they caught us out on the break.

"The most pleasing aspect was that no one gave up, we kept plugging away and we scored another good goal late on. This is a transitional period for us with "O'B" having just taken over and at the moment there are a lot of unsettling factors.

"It's a matter of staying patient because we are certainly playing well."

The game at Curzon had seen Colls take the lead on 11 minutes when a cross into the penalty area was chested down by Darren Maloney for Micky Walsh, making his full debut for the club since his transfer from Flixton, to blast home. The home side levelled on the half hour when the Colls' keeper made a hash of a corner and there was little he could do to atone for his mistake five minutes later when a neat flick over his head brought Curzon their second.

Two goals in two minutes either side of the break had Colls really up against it but they stuck to the game plan of controlled, passing football.

Micky Wolstenholme had a golden opportunity to reduce the arrears in this period of dominance but his header off Mark Jones' cross lacked power.

Despite conceding a fifth, Colls were still to determined to take something out of the game and gained their reward when Jones crossed and Micky Beirne, another recent signing from Flixton, turned his marker and dummied the keeper for the best goal of the game.

Although Mark Jones had yet another outstanding performance for the Atherton side with his wingplay, it was youngster Stephen Morris who picked up the man of the match nomination.

Radcliffe Boro manager Kevin Glendon is calling for quick and decisive action from Unibond League officials.

"We were off again on Saturday," he stated. "I looked at the league table and, having been on the halfway mark, we have now slipped into the bottom pack but we haven't played.

"The big problem is we have completed 13 games but other clubs above us have played 22. Nine games adrift. That is incredible.

"And what do they do? Our next three games are in the cup! We play at Chorley tomorrow night and have Congleton at home this Saturday. The weekend fixture is just a nonsense." He added: "There are only two cup games on including ours and all the rest are in the league so that will put us even further behind the rest in terms of number of games played.

"People are saying it's the same for everyone but I don't think it is. We had a good run in the FA Cup but it's now we are being asked to pay for that.

"I have already asked the league if we can switch this Congleton game to a league fixture but they have said no. I am going to ask again this week.

"What is happening is not fair to us as a club. I'd rather forsake this league cup competition to get league fixtures in. How are we going to catch up?

"There are knock-on effects all round. We will end up playing two or three games a week towards the end of the season and it's not right to ask our supporters to foot the expense of turning out so often in one week.

"I just don't understand the way the league are doing things at the moment. It's very frustrating."

On the plus side for Glendon, in a game he would rather not have to play, he has everyone fit for tomorrow night's game at Chorley.

Last week, free-scoring Simon Carden moved to Unibond Premier Division Accrington Stanley in return for a substantial fee and Glendon is set to contact Leigh RMI for a replacement.

"I'll be hopefully talking to Steve Waywell this week about Andy Mason," he said. "He's a local lad and he doesn't appear to be figuring at Leigh at the moment so maybe we can come up with something which will suit everyone.

"I'm also talking to Stockport manager Andy Kilner about taking a striker on loan."