A LATE Richard Cresswell double saw Albion suffer an undeserved 2-0 defeat against a strong Stoke side in Barclays Premier Reserve League (South).

The former Preston and Leeds striker headed home the opener with ten minutes to go and secured all three points with a second strike in the final minute at the Britannia Stadium.

A relatively inexperienced Baggies team dealt well with a Potters outfit packed with players from last season's Championship promotion success.

And Albion were unfortunate with a ricochet that led to the opener but switched off after clearing a free-kick for the hosts' second goal.

Baggies coach Michael Appleton said: "The lads did really well.

"It was a very tight first-half and we did well to stop the ball coming into our box with the size of their team.

"We managed to contain them and they only had one shot in the first-half, which Dean Kiely did well to tip onto the post.

"We had a couple of half chances before the break.

"At half-time I told our boys to be patient rather than keep trying to counter-attack every time we got the ball.

"We played some great attacking football in the first 25 minutes of the second-half and I thought 2-0 was very harsh on us.

"A draw would have been a fair result and our lads deserve great credit because they really competed and looked the part.

"By the end of the game we had seven or eight players on the pitch aged below 21 and I bet the number of league appearances their players have made was huge in comparison with us."

STOKE (4-4-2): Simonsen; Wilkinson (De Laet 62), Cort, Shawcross, (Phillips 62), Dickinson; Tonge, Amdy Faye (Grocott 76), Whelan, Pugh; Pericard, Cresswell. Subs not used: St. Louis-Hamilton, Wedderburn.

ALBION (4-4-2): Kiely; Pike, Barnett, Martis, Hancox (Saied 66); Dorrans, Labadie (Samuels 85), Worrall, Knight (Sawyers 85); Slusarski, MacDonald. Subs not used: Elford-Alliyu, Lake-Gaskin.

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