A heroic second half performance from Daisy Hill earned them their first league win of the season in the NWCL First Division North, with a 1-0 win over Maine Road at the Plumb Factory Stadium on Monday night, writes Ian Templeman.

A goal up at the break following Ryan Talbot's 26th minute strike, Daisy were reduced to ten men four minutes into the second half when goalkeeper Morgan Newns was shown a straight red card when he handled the ball outside the penalty area.

Five minutes later, Daisy were reduced to nine men for a ten minute period when Talbot was shown a yellow card after an exchange of views with the referee, and was sent to the sin bin.

But with midfielder Mussab Benaly taking over in goal, Daisy weathered a relentless spell of pressure from the visitors, and held out to secure a very hard earned three points.

Daisy's Assistant Manager Dave Turner was understandably full of praise for his side's performance after the game.

"In that situation you are obviously going to have to defend for long periods of time, and we did it immensely. The effort the lads put in was fantastic", said Turner.

"When you go down to ten men and it's an outfield player you lose, sometimes the way the game goes, you can be organised and you can get through it. But when you lose your goalkeeper it's massive.

"Mussab was fantastic when he went in goal, made some saves, and ran the clock down when he could, as you have to do.

"But to a man I thought we defended superbly. We coped with a lot of crosses and set pieces, and got some good blocks in, but we were intelligent with it too.

"The back four were superb, and the lads in midfield were still making lung bursting runs in the closing minutes to get us up the pitch into the last third of the field.

"It was all about togetherness, work rate, commitment, and those lads out there all seemed to grow another six inches. And that was after playing on Saturday and having a quick turn around to another game on Monday.

"Grafting like that for almost 45 minutes with ten men, and for a spell nine men, was just incredible.

"They set the bar high in pre-season games when they showed the class and the quality that they have got. They are a great group of footballers but not only that, they are a great group of men.

"If you don't have good characters, you go on and lose a match like that one, but with the people we have got, from number 1 to number 16, that is why we have come away with the three points.

"We know now what this group is capable of, and they have set the bar high".

The game began with both sides committed to attack, with Daisy midfielder Ryan Lockett prominent in the opening stages.

After a mazy run set up a shotting chance for Declan Baldwin, Lockett then threaded a pass through to Kaiden Barlow, who fired a shot across the face of goal.

At the other end, Daisy keeper Newns made a fine on handed save to push an effort from Maine Road's Daniel Bishop on to the post.

But the deadlock was broken on 26 minutes, when Barlow reacted quickly to nip in between Maine Road full back Jake Pegson and keeper Oliver Brockbank to pinch the ball, and he rolled it into the path of the unmarked Talbot who had the simple task of slotting home.

Talbot almost doubled his tally nine minutes later when he got the end of Kyle Whittaker's cross to the near post but his shot went wide, and an entertaining first half ended shortly after Maine Road's best chance of the night, which was spurned by Bishop when he headed wide of the goal from six yards.

Four minutes after the restart the game's main talking point arrived, when Daisy keeper Newns was red carded for handling the ball outside the box.

Midfielder Mussab Benaly was designated as the replacement goalkeeper, and he had an immediate narrow escape when the resulting free kick from Joshua Clegg clipped the crossbar.

An already tricky task became more difficult for Daisy in the 55th minute when Talbot was shown a yellow card and sent to the sin bin for ten minutes.

Maine Road predictably cranked up the pressure and won a series of corners, but stoic and at times desperate defending from Daisy largely kept them at bay.

The visitors' best chance came with 20 minutes remaining, when a corner swung to the far post found the head of Kaine Williams, but he headed wide.

As the game moved into the closing stages, Maine Road attempted to test Benaly with shots from outside the box, but the stand in keeper rose to the challenge with a great block from a shot by Kane Cartwright, and a few minutes later he kept out a long range effort from Clegg.

But Daisy held firm, and after negotiating the remainder of the 90 minutes and four minutes of added time safely, the final whistle sparked celebrations on and off the field in the home camp.

Daisy now face another double header of games in the North West Counties League First Division North, with a trip to Bacup Borough on Saturday being followed by a home game against Nelson on Monday.