FC Isle of Man were beaten 0-4 by title-chasing Lower Breck at the Bowl on Saturday evening as the Merseyside team kept up the pressure on Premier Division leaders Bury.

Trailing 0-1 at the break, two quick-fire goals in the second half killed off hopes of a Ravens comeback in the North West Counties Football League clash.

Paul Jones’s home side started the game the brightest and had good spells of possession early on, but were unable to create a clear opening against the Breck backline.

The first real chance of the game fell to the visitors when Jesse Dowling was found after a good move down the right, only for his shot to sail high into the evening sky.

Only a minute later Adam Killey made a tremendous stop to keep the game level as Lewis Buckley looked destined to score from close range, only for the Ravens keeper to get a big instinctive hand to it to lift it over the bar.

In front of nearly 600 at the Bowl, FC Isle of Man regrouped and could have taken the lead moments later when the ever tenacious Danny Gerrard found Sean Doyle on the right side corner of the box. His dipping, curling effort had Theo Roberts scrambling, but it fell inches wide of the far top corner.

Just after that, Jacob Crook was unlucky to see his header cleared off the line when he rose highest from a corner.

Ste Whitley then had an effort cleared off the line as Dan Simpson’s ball from the left found him at the back post but, as he went to put it back across goal from a tight angle, the Breck defence managed to get it clear.

When Killey made a good stop on the stroke of half-time, again from Buckley, it looked like the game would go into the break level, but Breck had other ideas.

A corner was headed goal wards by centre back Tom Mitchell and, despite a massive claim both for a shove on keeper Killey and an offside, the referee awarded the goal to make it 0-1 at the interval.

The Ravens started the second half well and should have been level when Al Maitland, who had a good game at the back, headed a corner down to Crook but he couldn’t control the bouncing ball and fired over.

Despite a sustained period of pressure from the Ravens, Breck then doubled their lead just after the hour mark as Dowling’s tremendous strike from the edge of the box left Killey with no chance.

Two minutes later it was game over as Breck’s Elliot Hughes was free to head home from a corner.

Breck added a fourth goal just after the 80th minute as Sam Burns had time to watch his shot come back off the post before scoring the rebound.

SAM TURTON

- The result mathematically ended any faint hopes of FC Isle of Man making a late push for promotion in the Premier Division, with the Ravens now lying 12th in the table on 61 points with three games of the season remaining.

The Manx side are back in action this weekend when they host Charnock Richard at the Bowl on Saturday evening, kicking off at 6pm.