Wolverhampton Casuals vs Gresley Rovers
Crisp Smith gets Rovers going – Andy Parker – Burton Mail
Winger Kieron Smith found the touch necessary to despatch dogged Wolverhampton Casuals – then modestly refused to take the credit as Gresley Rovers continued their Banks’s League revival on Saturday.
Smith popped up to grab two second half goals in a devastating 13-minute spell just as windswept Rovers had appeared lost in Blunderland after a painful first half in which nothing went right.
A gusting wind and erratic bounce had served to reduce Gresley to the level of the modest hosts, but a switch from a tortuous long ball game to something more akin to the brand of football Rovers are usually associated with eventually did the trick.
Said Smith, an inspired close season capture from Central Midlands Huthwaite Town: “Anyone could have scored those two.”
What the 28-year-old neglected to mention was the phenomenal work rate that contributed to his somewhat overdue success in front of goal.
Disastrously shorn of new signing Tracey Norton by a knee ligament injury after just 32 minutes, Rovers had begun to look just as toothless in attack as they had in the previous week’s FA Cup debacle at Hinckley.
But Smith showed the way when he flicked home Dean Page’s free kick on 51 minutes. And substitute Keith Hill could take some of the credit for winning the dead ball opportunity by doing the one thing that Rovers had failed to do in the opening half – running at the opposition.
Page’s teasing free kick to the far post eluded the Casuals defence and Smith completed the job with trim efficiency.
With midfield space freely surrendered by their hosts, Rovers were in a position to make their superior skills show and another flowing move inspired by Martin Dick on the left set up a second goal on 64 minutes.
A hastily conceded corner curled in from Andy Moore’s cultured right boot, new boy Martin Haskins headed against the crossbar and Smith was first to the rebound to register his seventh goal of the season.
Moore should have had another after cutting in from the right and neatly sidestepping goalkeeper Derek Van der Ploeg but shot over from close range.
But it mattered not a jot for, when Smith was felled 22 yards out moments later, Steve Astley released a thunderbolt that the hapless custodian could not hold on to and Hill smashed the rebound high into the net.
Striker Gary Walters hooked home a close range consolation goal on 74 minutes via Bob Aston’s outstretched gloves but the goal was well deserved for the Casuals’ continued and usually totally unsuccessful efforts to play a footballing game against vastly superior opposition.
But talk among the home fans afterwards of their deserving a draw was pure lunatic fantasy.
Now Rovers need to keep the pot boiling with tomorrow’s home game against Tividale which serves as a prelude to Saturday’s tough derby trip to Rocester.
But Smith spoke for all his teammates afterwards when he declared: “It’s coming together now – our bad patch is in the past,”
Now the winger, whose wife Julie expects the couple’s first child in a month’s time, is intent on making his own style of delivery before the end of the season – more goals to help match his last season’s tally of 33. And if hard work does bring its rewards, it’s a good bet he will.
Wolverhampton Casuals (0) 1
Gresley Rovers (0) 3
Scorers: G Walters (Wolverhampton Casuals); K Smith 51, 64, Hill 69 (Gresley Rovers).
Wolverhampton Casuals: Van der Ploeg, Pincher, Tudor, Dutton, Hadfield, D Walters, Drury, Ingleby, G Walters (A Smith 74), Loftus, Chalk. Sub not used: Muir.
Gresley Rovers: Aston, Bottomley, Dick, Fernihough, Haskins, Page, Wells, Norton (Hill 32), Moore, Astley, K Smith. Sub not used: Lovell.
Gresley man-of-the-match: Kieron Smith.
Referee: D T Colwell (Kidderminster).
Attendance: 110
