Nantwich Town end pre-season campaign with defeat at Leek

Nantwich Town ended their pre-season campaign with a 2-0 defeat away at Leek Town.

Dave Cooke picked a strong side to start this game, with AJ Leitch-Smith missing out due to injury.

Sean Cooke had the first real chance of the game for the Dabbers, but he shot straight at the home goalkeeper Sam Booth.

The hosts came more and more into the game, as first Dan Trickett-Smith had a chance well saved by Louis Gray, before a free-kick by the same player went narrowly over.

Leek capitalised on Nantwich errors, Tom Carr had a golden opportunity to open the scoring but his header was off target.

Joe Mwasile had the best chance of the half for the Dabbers, but his shot from the edge of the area was palmed away from danger.

A Leek Town corner on stroke of half-time saw Rob Stevenson’s effort blocked on the line by Gray to keep the score 0-0 at the break.

Nantwich had the first chance of the second half with a Joel Stair header from a Cooke free kick just going over Booth’s crossbar.

Will Saxon and Rob Stevenson were next to have chances for the hosts before the deadlock was eventually broken by Jack Tomlinson, who fired a powerful shot into the roof of the net.

The Dabbers looked for a leveller and they had a fair amount of possession and several dangerous crosses that evaded on rushing attackers.

However, with the last kick of the game Leek made it 2-0 when a low ball was fired across the box and was tapped in by Saxon.

That was the last pre-season match as Nantwich Town kick off their Northern Premier League 2022-23 campaign this Saturday August 13 away to Lancaster City.