Otley Town 2 Brighouse Old Boys 3

IT was yet another bad day at the office for Otley Town as they suffered a West Riding County Cup defeat at the hands of Brighouse Old Boys, who had already beaten them in a previous league encounter.

Otley got off to a bright start when Dan Chadwick’s calm finish gave them an early advantage. However, this was immediately squandered when casual defending allowed Brighouse to equalise within a minute of the re-start.

The remainder of the half saw Brighouse in the ascendancy, with the home side looking like a team of strangers as passes continually went astray, and movement to give the man on the ball options, was minimal.

It took until early in the second period for Brighouse to make their supremacy count, though it was rank bad defending once again that allowed the away side to get their noses in front. On this occasion an experienced player lost possession in a vital area.

At this point, Town upped their game and at last started to build some concerted pressure on the visitors rearguard. They could consider themselves mightily unfortunate not to be awarded a penalty for what looked like a blatant handball and skipper Harry Higgins surely should have done better with a free header following a well-worked corner.

As so often happens, Town paid a high price when Brighouse broke away to score a third and decisive goal.

Despite a late red card for their centre-half Lee Williams following an off-the-ball kick at Toby Harris, Brighouse never really looked in any danger of throwing the game away, despite Harris reducing the arrears with a goal in the last minute.

This Saturday sees Otley back in league action, with an away match at Robin Hood Athletic (2:30).