Workington Reds completed their preparations for the start of the NPL West season with a very good 2-1 win at Marske United.
The North East side play in the NPL East but were second best against the Cumbrians apart from the last 10 minutes of the game when they scored their goal.
Although still short of several senior players manager Danny Grainger said he was “over the moon” with the performance “against a good Marske side.”
Lewis Reilly and Dav Symington scored the Workington goals with 6ft 5ins striker Connor Simpson scored for Marske six minutes from the end.
“I thought the only time they seriously worried us was for the last ten minutes when we had made changes and they had a few tall players who caused a problem or two.
“It was one of those games when I couldn’t fault any of our players who had been involved. It has been a difficult pre-season because of players not being available through various reasons.
“But we got to our final preparation game and it went really well. I couldn’t have been happier.
“I told all the players to give me a hard decision to make when I get down to picking the team for the first game and these lads have certainly answered that. It’s going to be tough leaving some of them out,” said Grainger.
Jim Atkinson, Dan Wordsworth, Sam Smith, Matty Clark, Ben Hughes and Scott Allison were absentees yesterday while Steve Rigg and Ceiran Casson were having their first serious work-outs.
Reds start on Saturday at home to Mossley; travel to Prescot Cables on Tuesday, August 16 and then visit West Allotment Celtic on Saturday August 20 in the preliminary round of the FA Cup.
