Scarborough Athletic inflict back to back defeats on Needham Market on a night to forget for the Marketmen.
Tom Rothery's side made two changes from the home game with Marine, as Seth Chambers and Jake Watkiss started in place of Jamie McGrath and Jacob Lay.
Needham started brightly, winning a corner just 30 seconds in, the set-piece was taken short to Kyle Hammond, whose dangerous cross fell to Luke Ingram to whip back into the box but saw his cross claimed by Whitley.
Reggie Lambe meanwhile headed away a dangerous cross towards the far post, prior to Sam Reed firing a shot wide of the right-hand post on 4 minutes.
Watford loanee Jake Watkiss then exploited space down the left wing, only for his inviting low cross to just evade Ingram a minute later.
At the other end, Harry Green latched onto a cross-field pass inside the box only to see Josh Tomlinson and Kyle Hammond in the way to block the shot in the tenth minute.
Luca Colville then saw a shot well blocked by Keiran Morphew two minutes later, while Jake Watkiss slid in brilliantly to prevent a shot from inside the box.
The Seadogs fired a shot miles over moments later, before Needham went agonisingly close to breaking the deadlock on 16 minutes.
Watkiss picked out Kyle Hammond with a great long ball, releasing the latter through on goal, whose initial lobbed effort was denied before slicing the rebound over the crossbar.
Scarborough capitialised, breaking the deadlock themselves a minute later as Harry Green found the bottom right-hand corner from inside the box.
Needham looked to respond as Luke Ingram's brilliant left wing delivery found Tevan Allen on the opposite flank, whose expert control and ball back in found Teddy Collis just unable to divert it goal-wards on 22 minutes.
Again the hosts made their chance count, Colville's left wing cross found Sam Reed at the far post to divert the ball home from a tight angle a minute later.
Needham MOTM Teddy Collis exploited space only to hit a fierce low 30-yard strike straight at Whitley on 28 minutes, score Jake Watkiss' exquisite 33rd minute cross following a brilliant pick out from Tomlinson, was crucially headed away from Seth Chambers.
Watkiss flashed a ferocious left wing cross-shot just wide of the far post on 35 minutes, before Scarborough went into the break with a 3 goal lead. Green latched onto a through-ball into the box to hold up possession before finding the bottom corner.
Kieran Weledji however acrobatically shot over from a free-kick on 40 minutes.
Rothery's side made three substitutions at the break, introducing Jamie McGrath, Jacob Lay and Jake Dye for Seth Chambers, Tevan Allen and Jake Watkiss.
The night got worse for the Suffolk side in the 50th minute after Marcus Garnham's clearance cannoned into the net off Sam Reed.
Despite the scoreline, Needham battled valiantly until the final whistle, though the hosts saw a far post shot at point blank range cannon wide off the upright on 52 minutes.
At the other end, Needham went close to grabbing a consolation through Teddy Collis. The striker found space to shoot on the right-hand edge of the box but smashed just wide of the bottom near corner.
Scarborough then shot wide from distance on 56 minutes, while Colville's shot was well blocked by Keiran Morphew.
Josh Tomlinson was then withdrawn for Iffy Allen, as Needham created a great chance in the 82nd minute.
Jamie McGrath was fed free on the left-hand side whose intelligent squared ball for Jacob Lay saw the latter shoot straight at Whitley.
Iffy Allen then drove through down the left wing, picking out Luke Ingram with a great low cross but his shot was blocked on 84 minutes.
Marcus Garnham then smothered a low shot away well at his near post a minute later, albeit Walker added a fifth goal for Scarborough on 86 minutes.
Garnham then held onto a low free-kick at his bottom corner as 3 minutes of stoppage time were signalled.
Needham will look for a response at home to Chorley on Saturday (3pm).
Manager Tom Rothery said, "just really disappointing.
Just a poor performance really all round. Obviously a buck stops with me, so it's my responsibility. But, yeah, really disappointing performance. Yeah, just not what we deserved really, essentially. We've had a few (off days) this season, more than I'm used to seeing. That's what I've just said to the lads after really. I think in the five and a half years I've been back, we've had a couple of performances this year that's really tough to take really. But, yeah, you know, it's difficult. Everyone's got to lick their wounds, come back Thursday for training. And like I've said after, we've got to show character. Do you know what I mean? It's easy when things are going well. Now we've got to show character and show a little bit of togetherness. And, yeah, take that one on the chin tonight. Fair play to them. They were a bit tired, they moved the ball well, but we gave them quite a few leg ups.
Quite a few of the goals you can look at and they're our fault. But, yeah, we can either take it, roll over and take our medicine or show some character and look to turn it around and be better on Saturday, obviously. We could have got a couple of goals. They could have got a couple more as well, to be fair. We showed a bit more character second half, but still not enough in my opinion. But like I've said after to the lads, it's really easy when it is, you know, you're 3-0 and 4-0 down to just throw the towel in, and we didn't do that in fairness to the players second half. Although I still felt we were too passive throughout. But, yeah, look, it's difficult.
Positives, Jake Dye coming through another 45 minutes. Josh Tomlinson's got more minutes. Jake Watkiss has got minutes. There are a few positives at the moment. It's just very hard to see those positives if I'm being brutally honest."
Ahead of Saturday's home clash with Chorley, he added, "I keep repeating myself, there's just no easy game. So, you know, we've got to show a lot more than we did tonight. And everyone's expecting us to get relegated. You know, I always feel like we're being treated a little bit like a charity case. We don't seem to get any decisions. But, you know, there's two ways you can react to that. You can either lay down and take it and let people tickle your belly or you can show a bit of character and show resilience and actually stick two fingers up, and I'm hoping we do the latter. That's what I want to do. And that's what we need to do as a football club and a squad. So hopefully that is what we do. But Saturday will be tough. And the thing is, as well, when you're on the end of results like that, other teams look at it as well and, you know, they'll be mad for it because they'll be thinking that we're easy feed and they can just turn up and, like I said, roll us over.
So we've got to show, you know, collectively, starting from me, you know, what we're made of."
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