Daisy Hill go into a testing double header of home games in the North West Counties League First Division North this weekend, on the back of a fine 3-0 win at Garstang on Wednesday evening, writes Ian Templeman.

Holker Old Boys visit the Plumb Factory Stadium on Saturday afternoon, followed by Droylsden on Bank Holiday Monday afternoon, and with Holker having been knocked off the top of the table by their South Manchester rivals in midweek, both visiting sides will be looking to pick up points to maintain their places in the promotion chasing pack.

But Daisy manager Lee Hill is confident that his side can keep the momentum going after their impressive midweek display.

“It was a good performance from us up at Garstang, and we were on the front foot right from the opening five minutes”, said Hill.

“We were aggressive from the start and the lads did everything we asked them to do.

“It’s always a concern when you don’t score after such a strong start, but with the quality we have and the way we started, I was confident that at some point we’d make the breakthrough.

“At half time, being 2-0 up, we told the lads to keep it tight and not to take the foot off the gas, because if we scored again that would kill it and make things a lot more comfortable.

“It was a pleasing performance all round, as we had a training session on Tuesday night when we did some analysis, and ran through some dos and don’ts. We went into Wednesday’s game - on the back of two 3-2 defeats, so keeping a clean sheet was really important.

“But at Garstang, the lads put what we wanted into practice almost flawlessly, and it could have been five or six in the end.

“Now, we have two really difficult games back to back where there is a potential to get nothing from, based on the league positions of Holker and Droylsden compared to ourselves.

“So it was really important we picked up the three points on Wednesday, with those games coming up.

“Holker lost 5-1 on Wednesday while we kept a clean sheet, so we know they will have a reaction to that and be coming at us, and Monday is going to be a tough one too.

“But as ever, we’ll take one game at a time, and we are just focussed on Saturday for now”.

On Wednesday evening, Daisy created two chances inside the opening two minutes, both of which fell to Kaiden Barlow.

In the opening minute, a neat flick on by strike partner Ryan Talbot found Barlow in space and he fired over from 20 yards, and almost straight away Barlow was in position once again to try his luck from the same range, but again missed the target.

Buoyed by the promising start, Daisy continued to push forward and Talbot smacked a shot against the crossbar before being denied by Garstang keeper Joel Sargeant, who first of all blocked a Talbot shot before pushing away the follow up from Charlie Roberts.

But it was Roberts who finally broke the deadlock after an opening 25 minutes of almost complete domination from Daisy, when he latched on to a finely judged through ball, and coolly slotted home the opener into the bottom corner of the net.

Two minutes from the break, Barlow doubled Daisy’s lead when he tried a shot from 30 yards that home keeper Sargeant seemed to have gathered safely, but then fumbled the ball which slipped from his grasp and fell over the line.

Eight minutes into the second half, it was 3-0, when Talbot delivered a delightful cross to the back post which Declan Baldwin met with a fine finish to bury the ball past Sargeant.

From that point onwards, although Daisy continued to control the proceedings, chances were few and far between, although Kaiden Barlow had a strong claim for a penalty turned down when he appeared to be pushed over in the box, but the referee waved play on.

Saturday’s game against Holker Old Boys and Monday’s game against Droylsden both kick off at 3 pm.