Match Report | West Auckland (A)
Town made a much shorter journey this time around to face West Auckland at The Wanted Stadium. Still searching for the elusive first win of the season, Town made a few changes from their defeat at Carlisle with Snook and Giliga returning to the starting lineup with new signing Sam Taylor making his debut.
First-Half
The opening exchanges weren't much to write home about with only a smart stop by Taylor to push away a long-range effort and Matthew Crust firing over from inside the area from a free-kick being the only efforts of note.
The first real effort for either side came on the 25-minute mark when Liam Hegarty hit a great strike from the left-hand side that looked destined for the top corner but an incredible, acrobatic save from Taylor on his debut saved Town.
A couple of half-chances fell the way of Town, the first seeing John Howard head over the bar following some good play by Damian Giliga, and then Kyle Lancaster saw a long-range effort tipped over the bar.
Despite resolute defending, the deadlock was broken a matter of minutes before the break. Arron Thompson with an almost carbon copy of Hegarty's effort some 20 mins earlier found the back of the net with Taylor desperately unlucky as even with getting a hand to the effort he couldn't prevent him and Town from conceding.
The action wasn't over just yet, in added time of the first period, West Auckland found themselves down to 10 men. Leon Scott was the man giving his marching orders following two successive challenges in which the referee decided to award a yellow card for each - and therefore resulting in a red card.
HT - West Auckland Town 1 - 0 Northallerton Town
Second-Half
Despite the extra man, Town struggled to get a foothold in the game when play resumed. Taylor was having to be on hand to pull off some fantastic saves to prevent falling further behind.
Town struggled to create any real opportunities of note and as the game wore on it looked more likely that the 10-men of West Auckland would get on the scoresheet next.
The second-half turned out to be a somewhat comfortable one for the hosts as they saw out a 1-0 win.
FT - West Auckland Town 1 - 0 Northallerton Town