Daisy Hill bowed out of the Macron Challenge Cup at the First Round stage, after going down 4-1 at Burscough on Tuesday evening, writes Ian Templeman.

A night that started very promisingly for Daisy ended in disappointment, with the game turning in Burscough’s favour when striker Callum Laird put them 2-1 ahead in the sixth minute of first half added time, after Daisy’s Callum McHale had cancelled out Burscough’s opener from Matthew Hamilton.

Second half goals from Che Trapasso-Tully and Adam Dawson put a rather one-sided slant on a final score that didn’t do Daisy justice, and manager Lee Hill was keen to point out the positives from the performance afterwards against a team from a higher division.

“I thought we gave a really good account of ourselves, and in the first half, the lads were superb”, said Hill.

“Up to the third goal it was fairly even, and their manager said to me at half time that he couldn’t understand why we are where we are in the league.

“He said we should be in the top three with the way we had played, and he admitted that we had been the better side in the first half,

“Losing a goal right on half time, was a blow, and if we had gone it at the break level, it makes the team talk for both teams completely different.

“Once again we have conceded poor goals from mistakes, although the fourth goal was a good strike from a distance, so we made our own problems which turned the game in their favour.

“After the third goal they started to move the ball around a bit and show their quality.

“But Callum McHale had a good chance in the first minute, Kaiden Barlow had a good chance too early on, and if those go in it’s a different story”.

McHale’s chance in the opening minute, when he sided footed wide from a Barlow cut back, was one of several good moments in a good opening spell for Daisy.

Barlow came close himself when he got on the end of a sweeping move involving Declan Baldwin and Luke Roscoe, but steered the shot over, although at the other end captain Jake O’Brien did well to clear a Laird shott off the line after the Burscough striker had rounded Morgan Newns.

But against the run of play, Burscough took the lead on 18 minutes when a ball played over the top caught out the Daisy defence and Hamilton’ delivered a cool finish to dink the ball over the advancing Newns.

Daisy survived a scare a minute later when home striker Laird managed to miss the target from almost underneath the crossbar, but they drew level on 21 minutes.

Another well worked move down the right led to Barlow racing into the box, and he squared the ball back to the unmarked McHale who had a simple tap in to level the scores.

Daisy continued to enjoy the better of the exchanges, but were hit by a sucker punch deep into first half stoppage time when Burscough regained the lead.

A clearance over the top caught out the Daisy back line, and Laird collected the ball and rifled in a well struck angled shot from the edge of the box to give his side a half time lead.

The game continued to be evenly balanced until the midway point of the second half when Burscough added a third goal, and once again the long ball from deep into space created the goal, with the pace of Trapasso-Tully taking him through on goal before finishing emphatically past Newns.

Eleven minutes from time, home midfielder Dawson added a fourth with the goal of the night, with a tremendous 40 yard chip shot finding the back of the net despite the desperate efforts of Newns to get a hand to the ball.

Daisy are back in action on Friday night, when they host Garstang at the Plumb Factory Stadium in the North West Counties League First Division North. Kick off is at 8 pm.