The Bears welcomed Wythenshawe Town to the Cleric Stadium, two days before their Cheshire Senior Cup semi-final with Crewe Alexandra.

Congleton made seven changes to Thursday’s side that were defeated by Charnock Richard.

Richard Duffy’s men began the game in dominant fashion and rewarded for their early pressure.

Ryan Read leapt the highest to head home a Pete Williams corner despite the best efforts of Jordan Burton to punch the ball off the line.

It was a game Wythenshawe knew they had to win with the play-offs in their sight, and the visitors had their share of chances too.

Dave Parton, on his 100th appearance for the club, was on task to deny a fierce effort from Connor Brotherton with the resultant corner being headed narrowly wide of Parton’s goal.

Congleton searched for a second before the interval with Darren Chadwick coming the closest, but his header arrowed marginally over the Wythenshawe bar.

Dan Needham had a shot expertly denied moments later by Elliot Wynne before the winger saw a free-kick whistle narrowly wide.

Huge shouts for a penalty were waved away by referee Jamie Kilgannon as Billy Buckley believed his effort was denied by a Wythenshawe defender.

Marco Fregapane ensured The Bears went into the interval ahead as he produced a wonderful goal-line clearance to deny Aaron Dwyer’s effort.

Buckley doubled Congleton’s lead moments into the second half with a wonderful strike from outside the box, arrowing past Wynne.

Deane Smalley halved the deficit with twenty minutes to go after he latched onto Dwyer’s corner to nod past Parton.

The game looked all but wrapped up in the closing stages with Congleton looking relatively unphased, but a last-minute strike from Veron Parny keeps the visitors’ play-off dreams alive.

Richard Duffy: We were fantastic

Speaking after the game, Richard Duffy was full of praise for his side despite being unable to hold on to their 2-1 lead:

“Really good battle, we knew what they would bring, obviously we made a lot of changes because we have another game on Monday so yeah we changed the team up, but I thought we were fantastic out there, we threw everything out there.

“We couldn’t quite hold on at the end, which is disappointing, but I couldn’t ask for much more, we could’ve probably finished the game at two nil, we had chances to make it three.”