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Oldham started much the better side as we struggled to get a foot on the ball. Our first touch was letting us down all too often. Our defence seemed to be under constant threat for the first 10 minutes as the ball refused to stay in the Oldham half of the field.
When we finally fashioned an opening the referee stopped play due to a head injury after Nik Kudiersky had clashed heads in the box with an opposing defender. The ball had been worked out wide to Stott, who'd found himself in space, but the referee's whistle halted proceedings. We should have pressed the ref to allow a contested drop ball rather than letting him allow the Oldham keeper to punt the ball back down field on the restart. As soon as he did the hosts pressed up forcing Kudiersky to pass back to Jon Sergeant in goals. The keeper hesitated and was tackled by the Oldham forward, who tapped home the spilled ball. There were bad decisions all round which led to the goal. Kudiersky had to then leave the field for treatment on a bleeding scalp wound he didn't even notice, caused in the earlier clash of heads.
Their goal brought us a little out of our shells and we started to press. McDonald once more looked dangerous out wide and our front two were working the back line of Oldham well. But as we pressed the home team humped a long ball forward, turning our defence, and their striker chased the ball down into the corner. As he cut inside Thomas Bradley came across to cover and had the ball smashed at his raised arms. The ref gave a penalty. It was harsh but we've all seen them given before. Fortunately, Sergeant was equal to the task, saving and holding the spot-kick.
Turner then had a goal immediately ruled out for offside - a rank bad decision - the linesman just got it wrong. He may have been swayed by the man walking his dog on the other side of the hedge behind him.
We were finishing the stronger of the two sides and McDonald was very unlucky on the stroke of half time as his deflected shot was parried well by the keeper, who did well to snaffle up the ball with Fletcher prowling.
The 2nd half started as it had left off. McDonald had two good chances with a long range effort and a front post stab at goal from a left wing cross. The hour mark though seemed to see us ease off as Oldham had ridden the storm and come through unscathed. Perhaps our heads just dropped. The host could have doubled their lead but were denied by a top quality 1-on-1 save by Sergeant after the nippy number nine had burst through.
We attempted to change thing around with Craggs and Hoskin departing for Matt Lomas and Liam Newman. Not long after the introduction of Newman we had a penalty appeal turned down. How it was waved away after the Oldham one had been given is a mystery.
Adam Kay and Newman had chances which they fired over from distance and we continually found our routes into the box blocked. As the clock wound down the home side had two breakaway chances with many of our lads in advanced positions, but they couldn't capitalise, meaning the game finished with a disappointing 1-0 defeat.
Team:- Jon Sergeant, Ben Hoskin (Liam Newman), Thomas Bradley, Nik Kudiersky, Dan Brown, Dean Stott, Adam Kay, James Craggs (Matt Lomas), Alex McDonald, Rob Turner, Wes Fletcher
Not Used:- Stef Ritchie, Oliver Devaney