Boss Wilkes disappointed with late lapse

Lightning struck twice for Padiham against Kevin Dally’s side who had snatched a point at the Arbories last month courtesy of Connor Belger’s strike.

And the same man struck again as the fixture edged in to stoppage time to salvage a point for the hosts in a 2-2 draw.

The home side opened the scoring after an hour when Emini Adegbenro slipped goal side of Dave Hankin and stuck the ball beyond the reach of goalkeeper Michael Donlon.

However, the visitors were level six minutes later and it arrived in fortuitous fashion. Jake Townsend’s strike was drifting comfortably wide of the target but Sean Cookson, who was grounded through injury, stuck out a boot to send the ball looping over Ryan Jones with his last touch of the afternoon.

Padiham took the lead in the 81st minute when Garry Hunter’s incisive pass played in Kieron Pickup down the right hand side and the club’s leading scorer pulled the ball back for Reece Pearce who took care of the rest.

The away side were seeing the game out without facing any threat until substitute Sam Farrow was caught out of position and Belger capitalised.

“It’s disappointing,” said Wilkes. “They’ve scored with pretty much the last touch of the game.

“It was a great response from us to go 2-1 up after trailing in the second half but we should’ve seen the game out.

“We’ve conceded two poor goals from our perspective and they were identical.

“We were seeing the game out comfortably but that’s the second time that Connor has scored late on against us.

“The game was all but won so that’s four points that we’ve dropped against AFC Liverpool in recent weeks.”

Wilkes, whose side is 16th in the North West Counties Premier Division, added: “We should really be beating sides like that. We’ve been on a good run having lost once in nine and AFC Liverpool haven’t won in 15 games.”