By Adam Lord

adam.lord@nqnw.co.uk

ATHERTON Collieries boss Brad Cooke hailed a fine turnaround from his side after their win over second-placed Lancaster City on New Year’s Day.

Cooke held his hands up after a poor start saw David Norris give the Dolly Blues the lead on the quarter hour at the Skuna Stadium.

But it was all change in the second period, Gaz Peet curling home a fine free-kick on 51 minutes before the comeback was complete on the hour with Tom Bentham on target after good work from Ben Conway to seal a 2-1 victory.

The three points leave Colls 18th in the BetVictor Premier Division after promotion with a trip to another one of the league’s high-fliers Warrington Town up next on Saturday.

“I’ll take the blame for that first 35 minutes,” Cooke said after the Lancaster win.

“We tried going 4-4-2 and we just couldn’t get to grips with the game.

“They were having too much time and space on the ball in the middle of the park and (goalkeeper) Paddy Wharton has kept us in the game. He was absolutely tremendous in the first half.

“If we’d have come in first half two or three goals down I wouldn’t have had any arguments.

“As soon as we changed it round we started to get on the front foot a little bit and then second half we were absolutely tremendous.

“We’ve had some words at half time and the lads have come out and they’ve absolutely delivered.

“I’m just delighted to get three points against second in the league.”

A new front two led the line for Colls with Louis Myers, starting his second game after joining on a one-month loan from FC United, up top alongside goalscorer Bentham.

“They’re two big lads, you wouldn’t want to play against them, that’s for sure,” Cooke told the club website.

“They’ve done well. For the first 35 minutes you could tell they’d never played together.

“We were asking all the lads to do things that weren’t to their strengths and we just couldn’t get far enough up the pitch to get them in good areas.

“They came alive in the second half. Lou was tremendous and Tom got his goal after working so hard.”

Playing second in the table Lancaster followed on from the Boxing Day defeat against another side in promotion contention, Radcliffe.

Warrington are well in the hunt as well with Cooke braced for another real examination of his side’s credentials when they head out on the road on Saturday.

“We’ve had a tough run of fixtures,” the Colls boss said.

“We had Radcliffe away on Boxing Day and were very unlucky not to come away with a point, even three points really, we were very unlucky.

“Now we’ve got another tough one against Warrington Town. We’ll prepare right again and give it a good go.”