Despite lacking an end product in front of goal throughout, which proved costly once again as it has throughout the season, this game was turned midway through the second half as the result of two contentious decisions within the space of six minutes by the referee.

In the opening quarter of the game, the promotion chasing visitors from across the Pennines came out of the blocks.

Forcing a number of good saves and defensive efforts out of Steeton, similar to South Liverpool at the weekend, unlike Souths, Ashton would find a breakthrough.

Playing good football on the deck, they worked the ball out to Leon Wright down the right channel.

The winger in turn whipped a superb ball towards the edge of the six-yard box, Ryan Jennings getting between the two centre halves to head the ball inside the near post to break the deadlock on the night.

Despite trying to push forward for an equaliser, nothing was coming off for those in green and white.

And the evening took a turn for the worse as Toby Jeffrey went down in some discomfort shortly after the half hour mark and was forced from the pitch with an ankle injury.

Shortly before the interval, the visitors managed to create another two good chances.

The first saw Catlow making a fantastic diving save to the left to deny Jennings a second goal before Josh Kaine, on his return from injury, managed to get in the way of a goal bound shot from Wright to deflect it wide for a corner.

Into the second half, Ryan Firth had Steeton’s first real chance of the evening put his effort from range went wide of the far post.

The visitors doubled their lead from the spot after a penalty decision that left the home side outraged and the away side bemused.

Hitting the Chevrons on the counter, Jack Hatton found himself in possession but going away from goal.

The right-back then went to ground under no pressure or contact, however the official pointed to the spot much to the anger of James Catlow between the sticks for the hosts.

Conor Ready proved ready to put the ball into the net despite Catlow getting a hand to the strike.

With the home side still riled, moments later another hasty decision from the man in the middle as he produced a red card for Ben McCready.

Claiming the Steeton right-back had deliberately moved his knee towards an opposition player, it appeared an incorrect decision from the off.

Undeterred from the original challenge that led to his dismissal, the defender had carried on to make another challenge on a different player during the same phase of play.

Now down to ten men, tensions were threatening to boil over both on and off the pitch as the two sets of benches exchanged heated words.

These incidents in turn took any sort of tempo and momentum out of play as the remaining half hour was a scrappy affair with both sets of players now playing the ball into the air and pulling out of any 50/50 challenges.

Late on, James McClenaghan in the Ashton goal denied Steeton a route back into the contest with two good saves.

He first tipped an audacious lob from range over the crossbar before rushing out of his goal to get down low and fast to deny Ezio De Santis as the Italian drove through on goal.

Alas, it was in vain for Roy Mason’s side as they fell to defeat.

STEETON (Subs): Catlow; McCready; Firth; Gibbon; Kaine (Coe); Gomersall; Jeffrey (Lynn); Hudson-Parker (De Santis); Baldwin (McNally); McKiernon; Townsend (Mitchell)