A valiant effort from a heavily-changed Radcliffe side wasn’t enough to secure a spot in the next round of the Manchester Premier Cup, as two first-half goals from the hosts sealed victory, despite a late finish from Lucas Weaver to set up an exciting ending.

Bernard and Jonno made nine changes to the side that claimed maximum points against Rushall Olympic at the weekend, Mateusz Hewelt and Mo Doro being the only players to retain their place, whilst two of our Under 21s in Ethan Smyth and Daniel Ajidagba were amongst the starters.

After 16 minutes, excellent work by Jamie Morgan on the edge of the box allowed him to feed Lucas Weaver in space, he took aim and his low effort was deflected behind by a Stalybridge defender, the following corner then came to nothing.

Joe Duckworth’s audacious overhead kick called Hewelt into action moments later, but the forward was offside from former Boro man Sean Tse’s knock on.

Stalybridge were awarded an opportunity to break the deadlock just past the half-hour mark as Smyth brought Navid Nasseri to ground after the attacker entered the box, and Duckworth rested the responsibility on his shoulders but he couldn’t dispatch past Hewelt, who guessed correctly down to his right-hand side to collect with ease.

Five minutes later however, the hosts open the scoring through Jack Irlam who latched onto Liam Tongue’s through ball to go one-on-one and calmly converted beyond Hewelt who was rooted to the spot.

As the tie edged towards first-half added time, Stalybridge gained a two-goal cushion. Tongue earned his second contribution of the night by sliding into the far corner of the net after dispossessing Weaver on the edge of the Radcliffe box.

Three minutes after the restart, Ajidagba dragged wide of the target from a golden chance to get a goal back after being played through in space by Tom Walker’s intricate pass beyond the Stalybridge back line.

Three of our Under 21s made their first-team debuts as Jamie McDonough, Fin Holyoak and Jordan Shannon entered the fray in a trio of individual substitutions midway into the second half, and just before the final change, Radcliffe halved the deficit.

Tongue gained possession on halfway before sending a loose back pass towards his own box which was gratefully collected by Weaver, who took a touch forward with his right foot before blasting past James McClenaghan on his weaker side.

The Altrincham loanee had the ball in the back of the net for a second time with two minutes of the 90 left to play as he dinked over the goalkeeper from inside the box, but Weaver was deemed to be offside from Thornley’s over-the-top ball, despite his bewilderment.

Three minutes of additional time weren’t enough to restore parity, as the 2023 winners exited the Manchester Premier Cup.

Radcliffe will now change focus to another cup competition as we begin our 2024/25 FA Trophy campaign at the Neuven Stadium this weekend, where Worksop Town are the visitors. Buy your tickets online here!