Fleetwood Town’s Under-18s narrowly lost out to Bolton Wanderers at the weekend as an injury-time goal settled the tie.
Town had the first chance of the game as a lofted ball from deep found Joe Collins on the right-wing, who drove towards goal past his defender, and forced a diving save out of the Bolton goalkeeper.
The game didn’t have that many gilt-edged chances but in the 51st minute, Danny Edwards did well to work a yard of space just outside the opposition’s box, but his looping effort only found the roof of the net.
With 20 minutes to go, Fleetwood had another chance, this time down the left as Cian Hayes cut inside and played Billy Batch in, who was storming forward. He dribbled past two with his left-footed shot going just wide of the far post.
Bolton had their first real chance of the game with seven to go as they played their forward through with a deceiving pass and, luckily for the young Cods, it was straight at Connor Eastham.
A man was sent off late on in this game, to add to the late flurry of updates, as Collins was hacked down just outside the Bolton box, with the defender seeing a straight red from the referee.
Heartbreak set in with seconds to go in the tie as, even though Jake Wallace and Hayes tried to dispossess the left-winger for Bolton, he managed to break through before playing a ball across the face of goal to their forward, who tapped home.
The Under-18s now have two big games against Shrewsbury Town and Salford City to finish off the campaign as they will look to put this result behind them as they go into the end-of-season run-in.
Town XI: Eastham (GK), Wallace, Batch, Wilson, Hoyle, Barratt, Collins, Thompson, Takpe, Edwards, Hayes.
Bench: Borwick (GK), Sithole, Harrison-King, Khela, Marsh.