by John Hopkins
Another lacklustre performance by Warrington Rylands gave Lancaster City a 0-2 win and kept them above the relegation zone with just two games left to play.
Rylands started on the front foot and within minutes Harrison Wood was through on goal but sent his shot wide of the mark. From then on the hosts were second best and didn’t give Lewis Forshaw in the Lancaster net anything to do until the end of the match when he made a near post stop from a low George Waring header.
This was only the second outing in Rylands’ colours for goalkeeper Toby Hurst but it seemed as though he had been thrown into the lion’s den. After just 15 minutes he managed to stop a goal-bound shot but Lewis Mansell jumped onto the rebounded ball to open the scoring. A defensive error two minutes into second half injury time allowed Mansell to step up for his second and confirm Lancaster will remain in the NPL Premier League next season.
Warrington have now suffered back-to-back defeats by teams vying for safety from relegation and Manager Neil Reynolds says “we have to respond.”
Reynolds offered a big apology to everyone who watched this game. “That is not us. They out ran us and they out fought us. This is the first time in my career that I’ve made a quadruple substitution at half time to try and change the game.”
“I can’t get it into my head that we can beat top of National League North but can’t replicate this against Whitby and Lancaster.”
“We have survived the season, we’ve been on a brilliant run and it makes this defeat even harder to take. I am so proud of how far we have come but I’m not proud of our collective efforts today.”
He went on to say “we weren’t at our best against a resurgent Lancaster side” and offered his congratulations to new manager Jimmy Marshall.
“We have to respond, and hopefully we can better this performance when we travel to Hyde United on Easter Monday and back here at The Hive Arena next Saturday when we host Morpeth for the final game of the season.”
