AN UNDER-strength Colwyn Bay were left rueing a poor start as they fell to a 3-2 defeat at the hands of Evo-stik Premier side Nantwich Town.

The Seagulls were missing a number of key squad members including Lass Mendes, Craig Pritchard, Danny Bartle, James Joyce, Ashley Ruane and Will Booth for the pre-season outing, with manager Alan Morgan fielding five trialists for the friendly.

The visitors made an impressive start to proceedings and went two-up within the opening 18 minutes through a pair of headers from AJ Leith-Smith and Joel Stair.

After the break saw the hosts significantly improve their efforts and they clawed their way back into the contest on 67 minutes when two of the trialists combined to reduce the deficit.

This joy proved to be short-lived as Town were awarded a penalty soon after following an infringement, and Joe Malkin kept his composure to restore their two-goal cushion.

Bay then got a penalty themselves in added time when recent signing from Tranmere Rovers Ethan Devine was fouled, and Danny Andrews prodded in the rebound after he saw his spot kick saved by keeper Will Jaaskelkainen.

Morgan, said: “I think we counted 10 players that were unavailable which makes it hard and in the first half we looked like a team of strangers – but that will happen in pre-season games when you’ve got people missing and loads of new faces.

“But it was 90 minutes in the legs for some and the trialists who came in did well and we’ll see where we go with them. You always like to win, but at the end of the day everyone came through without injury so that was a plus.

“Now we’ll have two training sessions in the next week before the Stalybridge game next Saturday when hopefully we’ll have one or two people back.”

Morgan is also trying to arrange another friendly for August 11 with an announcement expected in the coming days.