Flint were reduced to nine men, as Bluebirds’ Touray Sisay was the hero for the home side with his first goals of the season.
Flint never really recovered from a tepid start, which allowed the home side to get onto the front foot, and they took full advantage by taking a 15th minute lead. Henry Jones delivered a corner from the left, and Sisay rose majestically to power a header into the net. Sisay had earlier been denied by a great sliding challenge from Kai Edwards as he looked to get on the end of a cut back delivery.
Ben Nash had Flint’s only real decent chance in the first period, when he headed just wide of the post from a throw in delivered by Jake Phillips.
Hopes of a comeback by the away side were dealt a heavy blow just six minutes into the second half, when Nash was shown a straight red card. Having initially intercepted a cross field ball, he tried to reclaim possession and in doing so, stretched into a challenge on home skipper Dylan Rees with his foot up, catching Rees on the ankle. The tackle was deemed dangerous and reckless by the match official, who had no hesitation in brandishing the card. In the aftermath, Alex Jones also received a booking, which was to prove costly later on in the game.
To their credit, Flint rallied when they were a man down, and probably enjoyed their best spell of the game at this point, with the midfield trio of Jones, Danny Harrison and Ben Maher all scrapping for possession and doing their best to supply the ammunition for Jack Kenny and Conor Harwood up front. A Maher delivery from a free kick was swung into the box, and Kenny and Edwards almost seemed to get in each others way as they tried to get the telling touch on the ball, and it ended up going the wrong side of the post.
A collision between Ryan Woods and Sisay on 73 minutes meant that the Flint keeper had to be substituted and Jon Rushton came on to replace him. A couple of minutes later, Flint were reduced to nine men, when Jones picked up his second yellow following a tackle from behind.
Salt was then rubbed into the Silkmen’s wounds when, following a cross from the right, Sisay was on hand to apply a close range finish and make it 2-0 to the Bluebirds.
Flint had come into this game flying high in second spot on the back of an excellent 4-1 win over Newtowm, whilst their opponents had yet to win a league game. But it just goes to show how, in this league, if you are not quite on top of your game then you pay the consequences, with most sides proving capable of beating each other given half a chance.
