Match Report  |  Newcastle Town vs Gresley FC

Gresley manager Wayne Thornhill was disappointed with his side's performance and with what he described as two schoolboy errors which handed Newcastle all three points.

Caught flatfooted by a quickly taken short corner which gave Town a second half lead followed twenty minutes later with a calamitous defensive mistake which all but ended the match for the visitors.

Thornhill was forced to make changes with influential players Kieran O'Connell, Jack Langston and Jake Carlisle all serving suspensions. He was also missing Sam Grice (groin) and Luke Edwards (hamstring) to add to his woes.

However, there were a couple of surprise faces on the bench with Sam Woods and Liam Guest making an appearance. Guest, the popular young defender, left Gresley in the summer to study in the United States but with their football taking a break he travelled back to spend the Christmas and New Year holidays with his family and has been training with Gresley agreeing to help the club out for a couple of games or so.

Town are doing well in the league and before today's game were sitting third so it was expected to be a tough encounter and so it proved. The hosts were soon applying the pressure with Gresley keeper Alex Townsend having to turn Tim Sander's shot onto the post.

Gresley had their moments with Martin Smyth swinging in a corner from the left which everyone seemed to leave thinking the ball was going out except for Mitch Hanson who headed goalwards from the far post and his effort was hastily cleared by a home defender.

Townsend was called into action again making a double save to deny Town substitute Peter Makrillas.

Lucas Harrison took a free kick from the left which Town keeper managed to tip round the far post for a corner. Gresley's Eric Graves then hammered a shot which just cleared the bar before the visitors had a very good claim for a penalty. Rob Mulonga made a good run down the right but his cross was clearly knocked down by the arm of defender Aaron Carter inside the area and amazingly the assistant referee ignored the protests of the Gresley players much to their annoyance and that of the travelling supporters.

Should the offence had been penalised and converted it could have given the game a completely different outcome.

Town took the lead early in the second half. Gresley were caught flatfooted by a quickly taken corner on the left and the ball came out to Sanders who disappointingly was allowed to fire a shot across Townsend and into the bottom far corner of the net.

The goal gave the home side the momentum and they began to put Gresley under sustained pressure for the first time in the game. Makrillas' effort was pushed onto the post by Townsend and the keeper then denied Sanders's follow up blocking with his legs.

Town doubled their advantage with the help of a huge mistake. Harrison looked to be about to clear a fairly innocuous ball on the edge of the area but the onrushing Townsend shouted for the ball and neither of them connected with it and Joshua Gordon was on hand to slot the ball into the empty net.

That blow was enough to end the game as Gresley looked defeated at that point. Indeed things could have been worse when Elliott Osborne struck a shot which Townsend blocked at his near post.