NORTH FERRIBY UNITED 2, RADCLIFFE BORO 1: Boro again belied their lowly position to give runaway UniBond Premier Division leaders North Ferriby a scare but they returned from Humberside empty handed thanks to a superb display from the home side's new signing Lee Conner.

Boro fielded new signing Matty O'Neill in the place of Adam Carden and set a high work-rate tempo that was to epitomise their performance from start to finish.

The opening half hour descended into a midfield battle, with scoring opportunities restricted to long range shots which troubled neither keeper.

It took 27 minutes for the first true goal threat to emerge, with United's Ben Morley heading an Andy Thompson centre across goal for Leon Wainman to see his header cleared off the line by Gary Sampson.

From the corner, Morley latched onto a loose clearance and sent a looping 20-yard drive narrowly off target.

Suddenly, the game burst into life and both keepers were called upon to earn their corn, Boro's experienced glovesman Andy Johnston taking the ball off Leon Wainman's toes and Anthony Pecora doing likewise at the other end as Sampson looked to round off a flowing move involving O'Neill and Scott Wilson.

Just as Boro thought they could take the leaders in at half-time on level pegging, disaster struck and Graham Botham pounced onto Wainman's cross. However, the goal was slightly fortunate considering the ball hit the bar and Johnston's head before coming to rest in the back of the net.

Having got their noses in front, Ferriby came out for the second period strongly and took only three minutes to double their advantage.

Paul McGuire cleared a long kick from Pecora to the apparent safety of the centre circle only for Ferriby's inspirational skipper Chris Bolder to return it to the danger area. Wainman took the ball on the right of the area, leaving his marker in his wake and pulling the ball square for Carl Fothergill to volley home from ten yards.

Boro responded in a positive manner and hauled themselves back into the contest just minutes later.

The Ferriby defence cleared their lines from a corner, only for Martyn Forrest to lash the bouncing ball into the top corner of the net.

After 57 minutes, Boro had a good chance to level the scores when leading scorer Steve Foster collected the ball on the right, cut in and let fly from 20 yards only for the impressive Connor to deflect his shot from danger.

The dangerous Andy Thompson almost restored Ferriby's two goal advantage after 69 minutes when he unleashed a cross shot from the right flank which caught Johnston by surprise and the keeper was at full stretch to turn the ball to safety from under the crossbar.

Wainman caused panic when he pushed the ball through the legs of Lee Duffy along the goal line before delivering a cross which Borough somehow managed to clear.

Boro threw everything forward in the final ten minutes but they couldn't break through and were left with little reward for their brave efforts.

Despite the defeat, Boro boss Kevin Glendon was happy with his charges. He said: "I cannot fault the players in terms of their attitude, work rate and quality of play.

"The most frustrating thing is we did not take advantage of the dominance of play we had in all of the game and in fairness that has been a similar story all season.

"Matty O'Neill did exceptionally well for his first 90 minutes for a long while and to be fair he is not a forward but the lad can play and I am looking forward to playing him in the position I feel will benefit the team."

Glendon added: "We were very sloppy both just before and after half time and we can ill afford to give those type of goals away when we are not freely scoring at the moment. Our defenders need to try and keep their concentration and, despite being on the ball a lot, they cannot afford to switch off and be sloppy as we were.

"However, I do recognise what we require as a team to turn us around and see a big difference in results, but they don't (forwards) come cheap and talking them into coming in the position we are in will be difficult.

"The problem lies in whether we can afford to bring another striker in and the chairman has made it clear it is difficult at this moment in time.

"The arrival of Phil Salt and Matty O'Neill provides us with a very good squad and the bench on Saturday was strong in terms of ability."