Tom Talks | After the Skelmersdale game

"I thought we deserved a point out of the game, but a point wouldn't have been good enough anyway," said Blyth boss Tom Wade after the Spartans lost 2-1 to Skelmersdale on Saturday.

He continued: "They had some good chances early on but so did we. If we'd got ahead I think we'd have won. We gifted them their first goal after a really poor mistake. Their second goal followed bad defending too. But Skelmersdale played well; Max Hazeldine was impressive, so well done to them.

"We huffed and puffed in the second half but it was obvious we were missing the class of Robbie Dale, Dan Maguire and Ryan Hutchinson. Add Stephen Turnbull to that list. We have a good squad but not one with the quality to deal with loses such as those. When key players are missing it's all too noticeable.

"We're giving the lads a couple of days off this week and will look forward to putting on a performance on Saturday at Matlock.