Ashland Rovers 1-9 Melbourne Dynamo

More cup joy for the lads.

The First Team travelled to Kirkby in Ashfield to face Ashland Rovers of the Division 1 East League, in Round 2 of the Buckingham Insurance League Cup.

Into the side came Moore, Hughes, Brown, Peverley and Goodband. Bodill returned to the bench, where he was joined by Trivett, Withers, Muir and Jones.

Dynamo started well and went in front after 10 minutes; great work from Nkrumah on the inside right channel as he beat his man and squared for Griffiths to side-foot it homez

It was 2, minutes later, as Goodband played in Bickerton down the right-hand side and he squared for Goodband to follow his initial ball and finish well at the far post.

2-0 quickly became 3 when Goodband was put through and he finished under the home keeper. The lads let their foot off the gas slightly and Ashland came back into the game. Their lively left winger’s shot-come-cross found its way to the centre forward who finished well for 3-1.

Ashland were lucky to keep 11 on the pitch after the keeper was only booked for being last man, as he fouled Goodband when through. The referee later admitting that he got the rules wrong as he thought the double jeopardy rule applied to fouls outside the box as well as inside the box! There was no harm done as Griffiths put the resulting free kick in the bottom corner for 4-1 at half-time.

With the tie won, the message at half-time was that nothing silly was needed and manage the game well. At the hour-mark, Bodill and Withers were introduced for Moore and Bickerton. Griffiths completed his hat-trick 5 minutes later with another free-kick, this time 30 yards out the ball was expertly put into the top-corner.

The last 3 changes were made as Muir, Trivett and Jones replaced Nkrumah, Supple and Griffiths. The game was now really stretched and Ashland’s heads had gone. Goodband added 2 more to his tally and Muir (penalty) and Withers both grabbed a goal a piece to leave the score 9-1 and a passage through to the 3rd round easily secured.

A great team performance and onto next week at Arnold Town, back in league action .