General manager Derek Townsley was satisfied with Workington’s performance in their final pre-season outing at Kendal Town, a match they won 3-2 thanks to a late Kyle May goal.

It was a curate’s egg performance with good, bad and indifferent from a Reds line-up that should be near enough the starting XI for Saturday’s Evo-Stik Premier Division opener at Rushall Olympic.

“We made a slow start and were poor for the opening twenty five minutes,” was Townsley’s post-match assessment. “But the first goal, against the run of play, settled us down and we played well in patches after that,” he added.

Reds intended to use Joe McGee for part of the game but a serious accident on the M6 prevented the Birkenhead- based player getting to Kendal.

Reds had opened the scoring through Tom Kilifin in the first-half then saw Nathan Waterston score his first goal for the club. Town twice fought back with what Townsley described as “two poor goals” before evergreen May headed home an 86th-minute winner.

Matthew Douglas broke a front tooth in an aerial collision during the first half and Sam Smith came off before the end with a calf problem.

James Earl will be having his injury assessed after playing for seventy minutes while his replacement, Rob Wilson, reported no immediate reaction to his ankle problem after returning to the action sooner than expected.