Extra time strike from Burke puts Ashton into second round of Coop Challenge Cup

Ashton made it into the second round draw of the prestigious Co-operative sponsored Lancashire Challenge Cup but made hard work of it on Daisy Hill's heavy rain soaked pitch.
Hitchen and Sharpe search for an opening
through the pouring rain
Ashton started very brightly, despite changes in personnel from Saturday's FA Vase victory, dominating the early exchanges. However with Daisy Hill's policy of 10 men behind the ball it was difficult to penetrate the defensive line to get a clear sight of goal from close range.
A great strike from distance by Chris Lawton was well saved by Moore in the Daisy goal, and further efforts from Potter, Hitchen and Townshend were more comfortably dealt with. Several other strikes on goal were blocked by enthusiastic defenders.

Hitchen effort blocked by Naylor

Daisy Hill were restricted to attacking on the break, but the Ashton back four coped easily with the home team attacks.
The second half took a similar path to the first with Ashton taking the lions share of possession, and Daisy Hill playing on the break.
Hitchen denied again by last ditch tackle
However Ashton's normal incisive passing was strangely absent with good field position squandered by indecision by the ball carrier and a lack of movement off the ball.
Despite the disjointed play Ashton did create two excellent openings to seal the win in normal time as first Paul Townshend and then Paul McVeigh struck the upright with the keeper beaten and then Moore was forced into 3 excellent saves at full stretch.
In the last 10 minutes, and during extra time Daisy Hill started to release more men on attacks, which gave Ashton keeper Paxton more to do, but this also gave Ashton more space to play in.
Ashton finally got the breakthrough as Daniel Hitchen was pulled down and Tom Potter floated the free kick into the Daisy box and onto Mike Burke's head whose deft flick cleared the keeper and dropped into the bottom corner in the 111th minute. 1-0

Burke gets their first to seal Ashton's
5th win on the run

Daisy through caution to the wind to try to recover the match but Ashton's defence held firm to claim a sixth clean sheet of the season whilst Ashton should really have increased their advantage as 4 break ways were once again squandered by erroneous decision making.
Ashton MoM was Steve Bennett with an excellent performance out of position, whilst Daisy Hill's star man was skipper Craig Naylor with some terrific defending to keep Ashton at bay.

A disjointed performance by Ashton, but a win is a win and it puts the team into the hat and hoping to draw one of the big guns of Leigh RMI, Barrow, Burscough or Southport in the next round to once again test the team's progress.
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