Two second-half goals sent Daisy Hill to a 2-0 defeat at home to Pennington, in their opening group stage game in the Atherton Charity Cup on Thursday evening.

Although Daisy created a number of good chances, an early second-half goal from Brad Hodkinson put the visitors ahead, and the victory was wrapped up eight minutes from the end when Dom Kanoyangwa added a second.

Daisy coach Joey Collins insisted afterwards there were still plenty of positives to take from the game.

“In the first half we had two or three good chances, and on another day they would go in,” said Collins.

“We have been working hard on making sure forwards get into good positions to get chances, and you have got to be in there to miss them.

“We are a bit disappointed that we’ve not scored, but we were getting balls into the right areas, and that is what we want.

“Pennington created two good chances and took both of them, and other than that our keeper only had a couple of saves to make.

“We’ve got two back to back games now, and need to keep giving people minutes. We’ve got an abundance of good players, especially in midfield and it’s now about making sure we get the right balance in the side moving forward.”

Daisy were certainly left ruing missed chances after an opening 45 minutes that saw a Kaiden Barlow header just miss the target, before Pennington keeper Ryan Woodward made two good saves, first from Finlay Townley and then to deny Barlow on the stroke of half time.

Pennington struck a blow eight minutes into the second half when Hodkinson rifled a shot into the bottom corner of the net, but 10 minutes later Daisy came close to levelling when Henry Chalkley’s corner to the far post was headed just wide by Jack Lawder.

But Pennington sealed the win with eight minutes remaining, when Kanoyangwa picked up the ball on the edge of the box, and cut inside the covering defender before burying a shot low into the net at the near post.

Daisy now face Ashton Athletic today before completing their group-stage fixtures with a home game against Atherton LR on Monday evening.