Tuesday night saw Lairds compete in the Wirral District FA Senior Cup and entertained West Kirby from the West Cheshire league.
The visitors stifled Lairds for long periods with a battling display, but they were dangerous on the break. Will Ebbrell had to make a good save after 25 minutes. Neither side produced much after that and the half time score was 0-0.
Although under no real pressure during the match, Lairds provided the visitors with a great chance in the 55 minute due to a lazy back pass and Ash Power netted the opening goal and they defended heroically to keep their lead, especially their keeper who made some excellent saves, but some woeful finishing did not help Lairds cause.
That is until the 78th minute when captain Ryan Smith let fly from outside of the box and his deflected shot levelled matters.
Lairds now piled on the pressure but had to wait until the 94th minute for the winner as Jay Harvey collected a pass on the edge of the box, turned and fired a good goal into the corner of the net. Lairds could have scored more in the extra period but poor finishing let them down, but they are through to the next round.
On Saturday they travelled to second-placed Stockport Town and produced a below par performance which dented their six-game unbeaten run, but being without influential players did not help the cause.
Although starting brightly they conceded in the 12th minute due to poor marking, but fought back gamely until the last five minutes of the half and conceded two further goals due to slack defending and failure to clear their lines and went into the break 3-0 down.
They were little changed in the second half as they lacked composure and team work and only had their first effort on goal by Tom Ley in the 70th minute which was well saved. Lairds then continued their frailties when allowing errors that Town capitalised on to score twice in the 63rd and 72nd minutes, before Kieran Hamm netted a fine header in the 88th minute for Lairds’ consolation effort.
Lairds will hope to respond from this best-forgotten 5-1 defeat as they entertain top-of-the-table Brocton next Saturday at the KRCT stadium with a 3.00pm kick off.
The reserves had better fortune when defeating Capenhust Villa reserves 3-2 in a hard-fought West Cheshire division three encounter that saw goals from Luke Burns, Adam Larway, and Dale Atherton secure the points to keep them in second place with a game in hand.
The youth team also had success when beating Runcorn Linnets 4-1 thanks to Bobby Barker netting a hat-trick and Leo Patten adding a single to keep them top of the youth division.
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