A goal in the sixth minute of stoppage time from Ashton Athletic substitute Nathan Beca rounded off a dramatic second half comeback and earned his side a 2-2 draw against Daisy Hill at the Plumb Factory Stadium on Friday evening, writes Ian Templeman.

Daisy had dominated the first half of the North West Counties League First Division North encounter, and two goals from Sam Twist established a 2-0 half time lead that could easily have been greater.

But once Ashton Athletic’s captain Joshua Nicolson pulled a goal back ten minutes into the second half, the visitors were on the front foot, and despite some determined defending from Daisy, Beca struck with virtually the last kick of the game to secure a point for his side.

Daisy manager Lee Hill summed up the disappointment in the home camp afterwards.

“It feels like a defeat really, and the manner in which we lost two points was very deflating”, said Hill

“Morgan Newns (Daisy goalkeeper) is disappointed as he feels that he could have saved the second goal, but the other side of that is that we could have come in at half time four or five up.

“It’s fine margins at times, and if we had scored more of those first half chances, it would have been different.

“We said at half time that we had to make sure that we weren’t left ruing those missed chances, but we did.

“We were comfortable for most of the game but the good things we were doing, and what worked well in the first half, was what we stopped doing in the second half.

“The first half was one of the best we’ve played all season, and although we were very average in the second half, it was a bit of a to and fro.

“Momentum is a difficult thing to play against, and we had that in the first half, but they regrouped and came at us more in the second half, and we couldn’t wrestle that back off them.

“Although the lads have given 100 per cent, this season there have been certain moments in games that have cost us. We need to be dealing with those moments a bit better and hopefully this has been a learning experience”.

The final score was not one that many would have predicted after a first half in which Daisy created a series of good chances almost right from the first blast of the referee’s whistle.

Kaiden Barlow set the tone in the opening minutes with a cracking 25 yarder that was smartly tipped over by the Ashton keeper Joe Beswick.

Dean Singleton then hooked the ball just wide after a Jake O’Brien corner was only half cleared by the Ashton defence, and then Barlow tested Beswick once again in the Ashton goal with a shot from the edge of the box that was smothered by the keeper down at his near post.

But the deadlock was broken in the 26th minute when an O’Brien corner curled into the near post was headed home by Twist from close range.

Daisy continued to keep their foot on the gas, and after an acrobatic overhead kick from Barlow narrowly missed the target, Ben Unsworth just failed to connect with another O’Brien corner kick.

The strong running of Jacob Ridings was causing problems down the right for Ashton, and he was involved in starting a neat move that led to Declan Baldwin setting up another chance for Barlow whose shot from 10 yards went wide.

But Daisy finally got the second goal that their pressure deserved three minutes from half time, with Twist curling a delightful shot into the far corner from 20 yards to bag his second of the evening.

Daisy came out after the break looking to pick up from where they left off in the first half, and Ben Unsworth came close with the first chance of the second half when he headed wide from another O’Brien’s corner.

However, ten minutes into the second half Ashton pulled a goal back when a surging run from full back Conal Larkin led to him playing a neat through ball to his captain Nicolson, who picked up the pass and beat Newns with a well placed shot from the edge of the box.

The game then fell into a period of Ashton dominating possession, but being restricted to largely long range efforts and crosses into the box that the Daisy defence defended stubbornly.

But the introduction of Beca as a substitute midway through the second half proved to be a decisive addition to the Ashton armoury, when he bagged a dramatic equaliser in the sixth minute of stoppage time.

A free kick from the half way line was floated deep into the Daisy half, and when the ball fell to Beca, a burst of pace took him to the edge of the box, before he fired in a shot that Newns got a hand to, but couldn’t prevent from ending up in the back of the net.

Daisy are back in action in the North West Counties League First Division North on Saturday, when they travel to face Euxton Villa.