Max Ledson reports from the MTA…
Marine suffer 1-4 defeat to Darlington after struggling to compete for large parts of the game.
The visitors started the game on the front foot, taking a very early lead after 3 minutes. The ball was played forward to Jack Maskell who drove into the Marine penalty area before squaring to Tom Allan to find the bottom corner.
Marine struggled to stem the flow of Darlington attacks for the first half, creating little in the way of chances themselves. The Quakers soon doubled their lead through Maskell after 14 minutes.
The best spell of the half for the Mariners came after the second goal as they started to gain a foothold in the game, however, still looked open on the counter attack.
Darlington added to their advantage in the 33rd minute after a long ball over the top of the defence was latched onto by Maskell, who then took the ball round Matteo Spinelli and tapped the ball into an empty net.
Marine started the second half much better than the first creating multiple chances and getting their reward after 49 minutes. Ash Hunter showed great skill in the middle of the park to turn away from his man before continuing his run forward and playing through Fin Sinclair-Smith who found the bottom corner.
The second half was a much more even encounter than the first, but Marine found themself untied once more by the away side in the 58th minute. A through ball was played through to Will McGowen who was attacking down the left hand side and he was able to fizz the ball past Spinelli.
Marine: Spinelli, Sloane, Doyle (Marsden, 36’), Sinclair-Smith, Gregson (Whelan, 69’), McDonald (Thomas, 66’), Bell (Warburton, 80’), Wardle, Hunter, Fielding, Nolan.
Unused subs: Brown, Gamble, McIntyre
Darlington: Jameson, Barrow, Lees, Platt, Maskell, Main, Allan (Hedley 77), Scott, Barton, McGowan, Stanton.
Unused subs: Rutledge, Hopper, McGrath, Lennon
Referee: Shaun Taylor
Attendance: 1,011