STEVE Wilkes admits his Northwich Victoria side need to be more clinical.

They had enough opportunities to have won at Longridge Town last night but ended up defeated 2-1.

Saul Henderson, netting for the third time in two games, put the Trickies ahead in the seventh minute.

The hosts fired back with strikes by Paul Turner (43mins) and Elliot Pond (66mins) to take them up to third in the North West Counties Premier Division.

But outside of those moments Vics created the best chances, hitting the woodwork twice and having a goal controversially disallowed.

"We've said to the players, if you don't take your chances you don't win football matches," said Wilkes.

"We had a great chance at 1-0 to go 2-0 in front and then it's a completely different game.

"I think we had three one-on-ones (with the keeper) and not scored any."

Longridge scored their winner while Harvey Whyte was in the sin-bin for dissent.

"Unfortunately Harvey's the first player we've had sin-binned all season but it's affected the result," said Wilkes.

"We've had a chat with Harvey and hopefully he'll learn and not give the dissent that he gave to the referee."

Wilkes was not placing any blame on the match officials for leaving Longridge without a share of the spoils, but said he would like to see Michael Wilson's 88th-minute disallowed goal on video.

"I'm not blaming the referee for Longridge beating us 2-1," he said.

"We got beat because we didn't stick our chances away.

"It will be interesting to see the footage of the goal that was disallowed.

"Willo says he was three yards this side of their lad but we'll wait and see.

"There's no excuses. If you miss chances like we missed chances you don't win football matches.

"We've got to be more clinical. It's not just this game, we've missed a lot of chances, it's becoming a recurring theme and we've got to put that to bed."