St Helens Town 1 Holker Old Boys 3

St Helens Town 1 Bacup Borough 2

ANOTHER two home defeats does not tell the full story for St. Helens Town following another difficult week for Lee Jenkinson’s injury-hit squad, with back-to-back home losses at the hands of Holker Old Boys on Thursday and Bacup Borough on Saturday.

But the weekend loss to Bacup was a particularly bitter pill to swallow, going down to a last minute goal after Town had dominated most of the second half.

Thursday’s performance was disappointing, given that their visitors from Barrow arrived late and St. Helens started well but, just as they did two years ago in similar circumstances at Ashton, Holker took an early lead against the run of play, through Josh Tweddle in the 22nd minute, withstood Town’s fightback and ran out 3-1 winners.

On this occasion, St. Helens held out for the remainder of the half, then equalised through a Danny Lomax penalty, awarded after Shaun Brady was brought down in the 53rd minute by a clutch of defenders.

Town appeared to have gained the upper hand after the leveller, but then allowed the visitors to break upfield and Danny Keenan restored the Old Boys’ lead on 63 minutes.

Again, back roared Town and Luke Edwards fired in a shot which appeared goal-bound but Brady, standing in an offside position, helped it cross the line, but his tap-in was rightly chalked off and, instead of drawing 2-2, Holker soon made it 3-1 with a length of the field break which saw Tweddle score his second nine minutes from time to take the game beyond Town’s reach.

Saturday’s game saw the return of Neil Weaver from City of Liverpool and David Baines. There were debuts for Scott Lawrence, grandson of former Liverpool legend Tommy and Tom Grimshaw, a former Southport player, who did particularly well on his first start.

Town began well against their East Lancashire opponents and had three or four good half-chances, mostly arising from Alex Ashby crosses from the right, which flew across the goal-line, just out of reach of Grimshaw and Brady.

At the other end, Adam Fairchild pulled off three great saves, Bacup hit the uprights twice and missed narrowly on a number of occasions, including two crucial blocks by Town defenders, all in a ten-minute spell in the midst of the first half.

If Bacup had the best of the opening 45 minutes, St. Helens were on top for almost all of the second period and it came as no surprise when they went ahead in the 55th minute through Edwards,

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