THE smile's slowly returning to Dave Hall's face following last weekend's bizarre 10-goal thriller at Daisy Hill.

Although the Nelson boss is beginnning to see the funny side of the farcical 5-5 draw, he was distincty unamused at the time as his team threw away two North West Counties Division Two points.

"I can laugh about it now, but I wasn't laughing at the time, I can assure you," said Hall.

"We were inept at defending and we have to be a lot tougher mentally because we were cruising at 4-2 up.

"We've been pretty tight at the back up to that point so I can put it down to one of those things - but it better had be just one of those things."

Nelson return to league action at Norton United tomorrow, when defenders Martin Brown and Darren Fullard could be in contention for a place in the squad.

Brown has been out through injury while Fullard has returned from holiday.

Brad Pates will be looking to continue his scoring form following a hat-trick at Daisy Hill.