Marine were made to rue an abundance of missed chances against Cammell Laird, as spoils are shared in a 1-1 draw.
And it was the away side who started the game on top, dominating much of the first half and creating chance after chance. Niall Cummins and Lewis Reilly both had efforts saved well by the Cammell Laird ‘keeper, who had an excellent afternoon.
The highlight of the half came in the 24th minute, as Marine midfielder Alex Doyle saw his well struck effort tipped onto the post from 20 yards.
The Mariners would go on to hit the woodwork twice more through an unlikely source, with right back Josh Solomon-Davies venturing forwards on a number of occasions.
Neil Young would have gone into half time wondering how his side were not at least a couple of goals to the good.
Five minutes into the second half, the ball did end up in the back of the net, but the Cammell Laird goalkeeper was adjudged to have been fouled in the build-up.
Despite not dominating the game in the same relentless fashion as the first half, Marine were still creating chances and dangerous moves, without scoring. However, their constant pressure paid off in the 83rd minute, as Mark Howarth’s corner was nodded in by Lewis Reilly, who grabbed his fifth goal of pre-season.
But with just seconds of the game left to be played, a looping cross from the right wing was met by a blue shirt and headed into the top right corner, rescuing a draw for the home side.
Despite the result, manager Neil Young says he is generally pleased with his sides performance.
He said: “We created lots of opportunities and their goalkeeper’s made some unbelievable saves. The only disappointing part of today was we gave a very sloppy goal away.
“Sometimes when you dominate a football match, and you don’t take your opportunities and you’re winning 1-0 then you have to make sure you see the game out and we never did.”
Midfielder Alex Doyle missed the start of pre-season due to isolation but has started the previous two games. Young says he is encouraged by his progress.
He said: “His stats are very high and he’s working very hard. As you can see from today, he’s getting stronger and better.
“We’ll see that as we go, there’s four or five that are still trying to get up to speed. Particularly with the new signings, a lot of these lads haven’t played a lot of football, which will probably be the same at most clubs.”
