Lancaster City 5 Leigh RMI 3 STEVE Waywell was given little to smile about at the Giant Axe as a gentle pre-season friendly went disastrously wrong for the Railwaymen on Monday.

Lancaster were rampant in the first half against their former UniBond League adversaries and grabbed the lead in the 12th minute. Andy Whittaker, formerly the scourge of RMI with Bamber Bridge, picked up the ball just outside the penalty area, and when his shot was blocked by Paul Robertson, Colin Potts popped up to nod the opener.

When Iain Swan's error 10 minutes later allowed Brian Welch to net from close range, RMI lacked confidence at the back, a feature of their play further confirmed when Robertson gave the ball away on 25 minutes and Brian Butler was able to release Whittaker for the third.

Goalkeeper Mark Westhead was beaten all ends up by Paul Haddow shortly before the half-hour mark, and prior to his half-time substitution for Dave Felgate he was beaten for a fifth time as Lee Clitheroe got his name on the scoresheet.

While the result was irretrievable, Leigh needed to get their pre-season goal tally off the mark, and lost their best opportunity five minutes before the interval when Tony Black ballooned a penalty over the bar after being brought down by Clitheroe.

Black redeemed himself moments later when his slick interchange with Reynolds created a consolation for Dave Ridings, but the only remaining hope for Leigh was that the team would start to gel together before the end.

Indeed, the second half was notably improved from the first as Neil Fisher and Michael Reynolds put on promising displays, with the latter being unlucky not to be awarded a penalty when it seemed that he was upended by Halliday. Ridings was still the star of the frustrated RMI outfit, forcing a fingertip save from Mark Thornley with a close range header and following that up with his second of the night five minutes from time.

Ian Monk capitalised on poor defensive work to net a third for the Conference side in stoppage time, but Leigh will need to be much improved in their remaining games to build sufficient confidence ahead of the coming season.

RMI take to the road again on Saturday for their annual summer trip to Clitheroe. Kick-off is at 3pm.