Gresley Rovers vs Netherseal St Peters
Gresley Rovers 9 - 1 Netherseal St Peters
Scorers: Morton, Smith (2), Foster (pen), Gregory, Taylor (2), Worth, Swift (pen)
Team: Ian Parker, Joe Tomlin, Danny Gee, Rich Foster, Dave Hatfield (c), Luke Taylor, Josh Gregory, Sam Worth, Joe Swift, Paul Morton, Chris Smith.
Subs:Tom Fletcher, Shaun Rudge, Mark Shorthouse
We were at home against Netherseal in the cup and the weather was awful, but the referee rightly decided the game should go ahead. Netherseal are a couple of leagues below us, but with the conditions and it being a cup game, we needed to be at our best.
We came out looking lively, and from the off we were passing the ball around (very difficult on a boggy pitch), but that's something we work on a lot at training. We could have taken the lead as early as the first minute, when their keeper came out leaving an empty goal, but Paul Morton was unlucky just seeing his long-range effort go wide. We didn't have to wait too long though, as Morton made it 1-0 on 3 minutes from an acute angle. Chris Smith added another on the 10 minute mark from a fine individual effort and Morton's pace again proved too much for any defence, being bought down in the area, Rich Foster stepped up to make it 3-0 sending the keeper the "wrong way".
Netherseal were "rattled" (or even baffled) because we were running a mock with their defence, they had no answer for some of the quality we were showing. I heard an opponent say ' you've got to get tight on him' (meaning Josh Gregory) but as he's shown week in week out, not many players can deal with his abundance of talent. He was having a great time in midfield (along with Luke Taylor), and when you consider that they're 17 and 16 respectively it's even more impressive. Gregory added a 4th with a quality left foot finish then Worth got on the end of a great Joe Swift cross to take us in 5-0 at half time.
At half time we were buoyant, however I mentioned not to be too complacent, because it could be our downfall.
Second half started as we'd finished the first with Netherseal having few answers to our quality. Smith could of added another 2 but just rushed things a little, however we looked in control still. Swift twice came close, just unlucky with his final shot, but we were all over them. We made our first substitution 10 minutes in, replacing Foster (as a precaution because he picked up a knock) bringing on Tom Fletcher. This meant Smith dropping into the back four, and Taylor pairing up with Morton up front.
We then played the ball around from defence, up the right to Sam Worth whose cross found Taylor, and his finish was cooly placed. Smith added another, then Swift was brought down in the area by the keeper; he got up and executed a good penalty to make it 8-0. We then switched off a little and Netherseal got a consolation goal which was a little sloppy by us. We then made our second change, replacing Smith for Shaun Rudge, and he soon got into things. We had numerous other chances before Taylor added his second to make it 9-1 at the final whistle.
I think we can all be proud of the way we went about "our business", I've said for a while now that we would destroy someone soon. Unfortunately for Netherseal, it was them, and all credit to them they were great sports and although deflated they never gave up. They tried and worked hard, but our extra quality was there for the few hardy supporters to see. Some of the football we played today was awesome and pleasing to watch and will do our confidence no harm. What we had today was the normal committed players, but we played as a team, helping each other and everyone should be proud or their efforts today. Let's take that into our next game, against Lichfield (yes better competition) but if we play like that we'll give most teams a testing time.
