Skelmersdale United boss Paul McNally remains defiant in their race for promotion after another hiccup.
A commanding win over Northwich Victoria was followed by defeat against Avro in the treacherous Storm Dudley conditions.
There was a similar trend in Greater Manchester as Skem had to claw back a two-goal deficit.
Mikey Howard and Elliot Morris continued their fine form with two exquisite first-half goals but a goal-kick with a hint of a nudge in the back of the defender outdone the title-chasers and landed another crushing blow to their hopes of automatic promotion.
McNally reflected to Off The Park: “The Northwich game was a good win, we won without actually stepping out second or third gear. The Avro game was disappointing because in spells we played well, some good football.
“Avro are a good team but I think we got beat more by the elements on the day, it was a lottery who won, they come out the victors.
“We now have to keep looking forward now and see where we are at the end of the season, keep picking up as many points as we can, as I’ve been openly saying.
“We’d worked so hard to get back in the game to concede [after half-time] it’s a poor goal to concede from our point of view, it was dubious.
“My centre-half feels like he’s had a push on him, most of the lads in the team believe he did, the referee didn’t give it but I’m not going to blame him for the goal.
“We just stopped doing what we done so well to get back into the game, we started to panic a little bit when they scored because we needed to get a win, it just never happened.
“We can’t keep doing it giving ourselves mountains to climb, Avro is a tough place as it is, to go 2-0 down and comeback you think we’re on the ascendancy but to give it away is so disappointing.
“As I’ve said for the past couple of months, we have to keep taking each game as it comes and try and take as many points as we can from each game.
“We’ve got seven games left, for us to stand any chance of finishing second, that’s at risk, we have to pick up seven wins out of seven which is going to be a tough ask.
“There will be a few twists and turns, not going to be smooth sailing for teams behind us but they’ll feel they can see a bit of an opening. We’ve got tough games, Barnoldswick this weekend that’s never an easy game and Irlam a week after then Squires Gate away.
“We haven’t got it easy and there’s no formalities in this league, we have to keep doing what we were doing in the middle of the season and that was performing but winning without breaking sweat and we need to get back into the habit of that that we’ve quickly lost.
“The lads were really disappointed [against Avro] they were hurt and you could tell. I’m hoping that I get a good response from them, we have to get back on it. We’re at home, hopefully we can get back to doing things we’re good at.”
