THACKLEY may have lost their most recent West Riding County Cup game against Halifax Town but they made their visitors work for their passage into the quarter-finals.

The Shaymen, who were at full strength as they had no competitive fixture last weekend due to FA Cup ties, edged a close game 3-2 after Thackley had taken an early lead and then came back from 2-1 down to go into the break all square.

Thackley's assistant manager, former Bradford City youth striker, Andy Patterson said: "What a very good night at Dennyfield it was. It was a shame about the result but it was a great cup tie for our club to be involved in.

"There were a lot of people down here, a big crowd, a nice atmosphere, and our lads didn't let them down."

Halifax boss Billy Heath paid due respect to the home side and thanked the club for the competitive game and their warm hospitality.

Patterson added: "I didn't hear what Billy said and I have been too busy to read the remarks on the Halifax website but a lot of our players have said that he was very complimentary about our lads and the club in general, which is nice.

"From our point of view it proved to our players what we've (management team) been saying to them.

"We're not far away from where we want to be and, squad wise, we have a fine group of players.

"Inconsistency has been our problem this season with a new-look squad and it was inconsistency that cost us on the night. "We had spells when we were on top against a side from the top level of non-league football, but we also had periods when we made mistakes and individual errors.

"That's going to happen at this stage of the development of this squad. It's a learning curve and the Halifax game was a good one for the players to take memories from but also to learn lessons from."