IT'S two defeats from as many Northern Premier League games for Warrington Rylands as their wait to get off the mark continues.

Blues suffered an extraordinary collapse at a sodden Gorsey Lane, surrendering a three-goal lead to lose to Ashton United.

Striker Jason Gilchrist proved too hot to handle, scoring all four of the Robins' goals including three clinical second-half finishes to complete a staggering comeback.

Gilchrist had earlier converted a penalty after Rylands had raced into a 3-0 lead inside half an hour.

Ntumba Massanka capitalised on a defensive error to open the scoring, with Jake Burton's stunning effort doubling the lead before Matt Regan nodded in a corner to seemingly put Rylands in full command.

Read Matt Turner's verdict on the game below

IT simply should not have turned out this way.

Given the way in which Warrington Rylands assembled their three-goal lead at a rain-soaked Gorsey Lane, the prospect of what happened next seemed utterly distant.

Without creating a bucket-load of chances, there was only one dominant team physically, tactically and technically – and it was the men in blue.

Their football was crisp, their press was suffocating and they had the Ashton back line panicking whenever they got close to their goal, whether that was from open play or via Ben Hardcastle’s excellent set-piece delivery.

Ntumba Massanka’s early goal was perfect evidence of that, with the visitors harried into a mistake to leave an easy finish while Hardcastle put the ball on a sixpence for Matt Regan to head home on the half-hour to leave Rylands in a dominant position.

Between those goals was a piece of magic from Jake Burton – a truly unstoppable effort that seemed to take all the wind out of Ashton’s sails, with Regan striking just a couple of minutes later.

Indeed, Mark Duffy could probably have afford a wry smile when his counterpart Steve Cunningham was forced into a trio of tactical changes with the game barely 30 minutes old. The visitors had come with a plan, and Rylands had forced them to abandon it.

As unlikely as it seemed at the time, however, those changes were to spark a truly remarkable comeback.

Rylands will rue the sloppy concession of a penalty to give their beleaguered visitors something to build on – barely seconds after scoring, Regan dangled a lazy leg to foul Darius Osei and Jason Gilchrist clinically beat Luke Pilling from the spot.

Duffy and his players will have been hoping that was to be all they would see of the razor-sharp finishing Gilchrist can offer at this level, but it was to be just the start.

With the giant Tom Denton a focal point in attack and the two Bennys – Bjork and Couto – raiding down both flanks, Ashton went from dominated to dominant as the hosts suffered a catastrophic collapse.

By the hour mark, their lead was gone as Gilchrist scored two carbon-copy goals – profiting from Denton’s aerial dominance on both occasions – and when the red-hot frontman made it four by heading home Bjork’s cross, it came as little surprise.

If there is to be a positive taken for Rylands, it is that they showed glimpses of how things could look when it clicks in the first half and if that can be sustained, promising times may lie ahead.

However, the staggering way in which they contrived to throw away a first win of the season will take some coming back from.

Warrington Rylands: Pilling, Smith, Dwyer (Baillie), Thompson, Regan, Morris, Hardcastle (Rooney), Furman (Porter), Massanka, Hough (Amaral), Burton (Burns)