Liskeard’s dreams of ending a successful season with a trophy were shattered on Saturday as they dramatically melted in the heat of Launceston’s Pennygillam.

Okehampton were worthy winners as they took advantage of the self-destruct buttons the Blues pushed at regular intervals during what has to go down as their worst performance of the campaign.

Liskeard didn’t look right from the start and their big afternoon developed into a long and painful to watch disintegration as their indiscipline proved very costly.

In the end they saw midfield man Harry Jeffery and joint manager Martin Hodge red carded, Jack Podmore and Jarrad Woods sin binned, and further yellow cards for joint manager Darren Gilbert, Dan Jennings, Dylan Peel and James Lorenz.

Okehampton also had four players yellow carded as referee Bailey Walker struggled to cope with the big occasion.

But as bad as Liskeard might feel the officials were, the team needed to be good enough to rise above that. Sadly they were never able to.

Trouble started in the 23rd minute when Okehampton were awarded a penalty after Podmore was adjudged to have shoved Harvey Newman at the far side of the penalty area as a free kick floated harmlessly wide. The referee hadn’t seen the incident but the assistant referee on the clubhouse side had, and Luke Alden fired the spot kick in to put Okehampton ahead. In Liskeard’s defence it is rare for a linesman to give a penalty these days.

There was a drinks break soon after the goal, which was a good opportunity for the Liskeard players to regroup, and they did produce their most cohesive period in the run-up to half-time.

However, as most of the Liskeard contingent went into the dressing room, Podmore stayed on the pitch to berate the officials and was duly sin binned for the opening 10 minutes of the second half. During the team he was off, Okehampton doubled their lead when a chipped cross eluded Peel and Harvey Mullis and fell to the feet of Brad Ausden, who finished clinically.

Podmore returned to the field but appeared to continue to argue with the referee and only a minute after his reintroduction, joint manager Gilbert substituted Podmore, who went straight to the dressing room.

Liskeard threw on James Lorenz, who hasn’t played for weeks because of a recurrent knee injury, but any hopes that this would provide an upturn in fortunes were soon washed away.

Luke Mortimore made it 3-0 in the 62nd minute and two minutes later Jeffery, having been harshly booked early in the first half, collected a second questionable yellow to reduce Liskeard to 10 men.

It got worse as Woods’ persistent dissent led to him being sin binned in the 69th minute, leaving the Blues with only nine players at a crucial stage.

Temperatures reached boiling point off the field a few minutes later when Liskeard managers Gilbert and Hodge were shown yellow cards for dissent, with Hodge shown red after the arguing went on.

Young striker Finn Bartlett was introduced for the last 13 minutes and he created and missed a couple of excellent chances before a challenge on him, which certainly didn’t look like a foul, led to an 80th minute penalty, which Jennings duly converted.

But Liskeard’s calamitous performance was completed when skipper Peel, having just been booked, uncharacteristically dallied in his own penalty area to gift Ben Bickle the softest of goals.