We will feel disappointed not to have taken anything from this thrilling game against local opposition, writes James Barrett.
Despite opening the scoring and getting ourselves back level early in the second-half, two goals conceded via set-pieces contributed to a 3-2 loss.
Manager Stuart Massey welcomed back Jack Eden, Dawayne Campbell, Jordan Higgs and Tommy Bradford to the starting line-up, while Steve Burford was given a chance to start down the right. Mickel Miller was rested and sat on the bench alongside the returning Nicky Greene and young Oliver Thornton among others.
We survived a real scare after just three minutes when Leafe striker Roscoe DSane won the ball from Tony Sinclair and ran through on goal, but he screwed his finish horribly wide from 10 yards.
Leafe kept on the front foot for the first 10 minutes but we finally started to become an attacking force, with Sean O’Toole and Michael Campbell both denied clear runs on goal by tight offside calls.
The game opened up and attacks were traded; our best featured a neat run by Brendan Murphy-McVey, but his one-two with Campbell in the box was just cut out, while Campbell himself latched onto an O’Toole pass in the box but his shot lacked power to beat keeper Sheikh Ceesay.
We took the lead just before the half-hour mark as some neat one-touch football eventually saw Murphy-McVey tackled on the edge of the Leafe box, but Higgs followed it up and hammered in his first goal of the season from nearly 20 yards.