MICK Catlin got the performance but not the result he was looking for in his first game as stand-in Winchester City boss.

The club’s outside hopes of reaching the Southern One South & West play-offs were dented by a 2-0 defeat at North Leigh, dropping them to tenth in the table.

Catlin, who recently quit as Alex Pike’s right-hand man at Gosport Borough, stepped in as a favour to Citizens manager Ian Saunders who was called away on Army duty at late notice.

He is overseeing a particularly tricky sequence of fixtures with Tuesday's trip to seventh-placed Mangotsfield followed by a home game against third-placed Evesham at the weekend.

“Before yesterday I would have said this was a nice way to come back into football,” said Catlin.

“But I’m on a bit of a hiding to nothing really. If I don’t get the results, it doesn’t look like a particularly good move.

“Ideally I wanted a bit of time away to think about my next move, but I owed it to Ian to help him out.

“There wasn’t a lot of time to think about it. Ian phoned me last Monday and he was gone by Wednesday.

“The good thing is I know a lot of the players like Joe Briggs, Craig Feeney, Jamie Barron and Robbie Matthews, so it’s not totally alien for me."

City fell behind in the 27th minute when Roger James’ fierce cross went in off City defender Olly Searle.

Catlin sent on Howard Neighbour for the second half and he squandered a header from Stuart Green’s cross before North Leigh struck again on 52 minutes with a diving header from George Seacole.

Briggs, Neighbour, Green and 31-goal top scorer Feeney all had chances for Winchester, but it wasn’t their day.

“I’m not disappointed with the way we played in general, but with the way we defended both goals and the amount of chances we missed,” said Catlin.

“Both goals were preventable and both came at crucial times, just as we were applying a bit of pressure.

“They’re a big physical side and the heavy pitch stopped us playing with any real tempo, but we couldn't have done a lot more - other than score."

Both Searle and Danny Smith picked up knocks, making them touch and go for the Mangotsfield trip.