Leamington 4 Spennymoor Town 0.

Spennymoor missed a host of chances and wondered how they had managed to come away pointless from their trip to Warwickshire.

Moors’ skipper Joe Tait had two penalties saved by Leamington keeper Tony Breeden on a day in front of goal they would prefer to forget, with their defence being at its most generous at the other end as Moors slipped to their first defeat in five league games.

Moors manager Jason Ainsley has spoken of fine margins between victory and defeat in the past, and that point was emphasised by this result, which saw Moors drop down a place to fifth in the table, but still nicely inside the play off positions.

“If you don’t take your chances, you don’t win matches,” said a frustrated Ainsley. “We’ve had countless good chances and not scored. We missed some real good chances and their keeper pulled off some good saves, and we’ve got to be better than that. We played all right in spells, but you can’t afford to give teams four goals like that.

“Leamington didn’t have to work hard to score their goals, we made it easy for them, and that was disappointing because we’d been on such a good run.

“The first goal was a sloppy goal. We have to defend better because we gave silly goals away at vital times. We started the second half really well and gifted them a goal from a cross when nobody was marking their centre forward. We don’t deserve to win games like that., “We’ve been on a good run, it’s just disappointing that it ended in the way it did. We weren’t great, even though we created plenty of chances, probably more than we have done in some games this season.”

Moors started where they left off last week and played some good early football, and nearly took the lead on 20 minutes when Ryan Hall found David Foley, but Leamington keeper Tony Breeden saved his shot well.

But Moors were stunned when Leamington took the lead on 26 minutes. Former Darlington midfielder Joe Clarke burst into the Moors box following a weak headed back pass by Joe Tait and was brought down by keeper Jordan Porter – although there didn’t seem to be much contact -- and Colby Bishop scored from the spot.

Glen Taylor nearly put Moors back into the game immediately, but his effort went just the wrong side of the post as they continued to play some good football.

In the second half, Foley had another effort well saved by Breeden, and Joe Tait put a chance wide, but once again Leamington scored against the run of play. This time, Bishop beat Porter with a powerful header from a Richard Taundry cross.

Moors had a feeling it wasn’t going to be their day three minutes later. Chris Chantler’s run into the box was ended by a foul tackle by Kieron Dunbar, but Tait’s penalty was too close to Breedon, who blocked his effort.

Moors got another penalty on 58 minutes, this time after Breedon brought Ryan Hall down just a few yards out, and yet again the keeper guessed correctly and stopped Tait’s spot kick.

After Foley missed another chance from close range, Leamington were awarded the fourth penalty of the match when Tait brought down Junior English, and Bishop sent Porter the wrong way from the spot to complete his hat trick.

And just to rub salt into the Moors wounds on a bizarre afternoon, Leamington scored a fourth when Dunbar scored from a pass by Callum Gittings.

Team: Porter, Griffiths, Tait (sub Mason 80), Curtis, Chantler, Dixon (sub Armstrong 68), Chandler, Hall, Ramshaw, Foley, Taylor Subs: Bland, Anderson, Johnson.