Moore takes positives as ten-man Hebburn Town lose at Bamber Bridge

Daniel Moore stressed there should be ‘nothing but positives’ as Hebburn Town fell to a narrow defeat at Bamber Bridge after competing with ten men for almost the entire game.

The Hornets were reduced to ten men inside the opening two minutes as Joe Walton saw red for pulling down Lewis Hey as the hosts forward raced in on goal and worse was to follow as Mark Cullen fired home the resulting penalty. To their credit, Hebburn remained in the game and got themselves back on level-terms 12 minutes before half-time as top goalscorer Amar Purewal scored with a free header at the far post.

There were chances for Moore’s men to go in front for the first time in the game during the opening quarter of an hour of the second-half - but it was the hosts that grabbed the third goal of the game with 67 minutes on the clock as Nathan Mercer headed home to ensure his side collected all three points.

Despite the loss, Hornets boss Moore preferred to focus on the positives from his side’s display and insisted they ‘just ran out of steam’ after playing a Durham Challenge Cup tie against Easington Colliery less than 48 hours before their trip to the Sir Tom Finney Stadium.

He told The Gazette: “It was never going to be easy after being down to ten men after 58 seconds - but we still deserved something from the game and that’s a massive positive. They didn’t camp us in and they’ve scored when we were on top so I think we really just ran out of steam after playing on Thursday night. We just didn’t have enough to get back into the game.

“I don’t think there should be any negatives to come out of the game today, there’s nothing but positives and we have to take that forward with how good we were defending and attacking with ten men. We’ve have a tough run of games and I don’t think teams around us won so we are in the same position we were in before kick-off.”

The Hornets will now focus their attentions on preparing for next Saturday’s home clash with North East rivals Blyth Spartans.