Derbyshire Senior Cup 3rd Round
The Moat Ground, Church Gresley
Tuesday, 18th December 2012, 7.45pm
Gladiators Go Through in Senior Cup
Gresley slipped out of the Derbyshire Senior Cup with a defeat at the Moat Ground against Evo-Stik Premier outfit Matlock Town.
The Moatmen were without several players. Mickey Lyons has just had stitches removed from a gashed ankle; Danny Holmes was unavailable, James Jepson suspended and Royce Turville out due to illness. Midfielder Dean Rathbone was ineligible having signed after the original date of the fixture.
Matlock themselves made several changes to the side that were narrowly beaten at home by Luton Town in the FA Trophy in their last match.
The first half was fairly even with Gresley having the first chance when Richard Hanslow saw a shot on target deflected away for a corner.
Against the run of play Town took the lead when James Ashmore hit a shot through a ruck of players and into the far bottom corner of the net. Jordi Gough almost struck back immediately for the home side when he hit a long range shot which Nick Buxton did well to keep hold of.
Gresley levelled midway through the first half when Marc Strezyzewski picked out Hanslow down the left. The striker controlled the ball, strode forward and curled his shot around the advancing Buxton and into the far corner.
Minutes later Gresley went close to taking the lead but Jordan Nadat's effort was blocked and the rebound fired wide by Gough.
Town pushed forward and forced four consecutive corners taken by Ashmore and from one of them a header from close in brought out a tremendous save from Gresley keeper Gary Hateley who acrobatically tipped the ball over the bar.
Hateley was in action again as the half drew to a close first pushing Joe Leesley's shot away for a corner and then making a fine block on his line before the ball was eventually scrambled away.
The second half began with Hateley once more having to save well to deny Lewis McMahon with the keeper then preventing Anthony Griffiths-Junior his chance to get on the scoresheet.
Town regained the lead just after the hour mark when a cross from the right was headed home by the unmarked McMahon at the far post.
McMahon added his second and Matlock's third goal when Oscar Radford robbed Gareth Langford of the ball giving him the chance to charge forward before slipping the ball to McMahon who slammed the ball past Hateley.
A long-range shot then brought out another good save from Hateley pushing the ball away and with the game in its last few minutes Hateley once more denied the visitors as Leesley took advantage of defender Ryan Walker's slip and ran in on goal but Hateley stood his ground and made a good block.
Manager's View
Steve Titterton
"The main thing for us tonight was to get some pitch time for quite a few of the lads who have been sitting on the bench for the last couple of weeks like Sam Woods who's returned from injury three or so weeks ago so it was important to get him a good ninety minutes which he did.
"You could tell from his performance today that he didn't look out of place. He's been ticking over and he just needs a few more minutes.
"We decided to keep Michael Nottingham in with his suspension come up. If he hadn't have been suspended we may have rested Michael so we used the game to keep him ticking over. Marc Goodfellow has been coming off the bench of late and scoring for us and doing well and he deserved a game as did Richard Hanslow so we experimented tonight and put a few lads in to get the minutes in.
"We've just said to the lads in the dressing room 'what happened to us in the second half?' First half we played well; we contained them and got back into the game with Richard's goal, which was a fantastic finish by the way. He lost his marker and slipped the ball into the corner.
"Second half we were nonexistent and that's disappointing because we've got to go into Saturday's game against Leek which will be tough. It was tough at their place but we came back with three points so they'll be looking for revenge.
"Jordan Nadat didn't look as effective as he did on Saturday when he played wide. On Saturday we tried to get the width with it being a big pitch at Chasetown so we got Jordan and Rob Spencer to use that width which they did to great effect on Saturday.
"Tonight was a little bit different. We wanted people closer to Richard. With all the good attributes Richard has he does struggle in the terms of height so we wanted the ball into to Richard's feet or body and get support very close and working as a pair.
"For Saturday Danny Holmes will be back over the Christmas period which is good. We didn't risk Jamie Barrett as he felt a tight hamstring in the first half so he came off at half time. It's a slight concern but he should be okay."
