Another welcome victory following on from Saturday’s success against Wells City Reserves. Manager Grahame Cheeseman called up Adam Caulfield in place of the unavailable Sam Johnson who slotted in to midfield and gave a good account of himself with Leigh White moving to the middle of defence.
The home side started lively with Ollie Clements providing some telling balls forward on the right flank for the menacing duo of Jake Horton and Sam Clark to terrorise the Staplegrove defence. It was amazing that it took to 15 minutes before Wrington Redhill opened the scoring. Chances fell to Mike Rowcliffe who headed wide from a George Martin cross, Chris Bradley shot over from close range albeit adjudged to be in an offside position and a shot from Jake Horton was pushed away for a corner.
The first goal was scored by Clark who headed in a corner from Clements and Clark was again on the score sheet slotting home from a pass from Ethan Johnson. At this stage it looked like a goal avalanche was about to happen as Clark completed a first half hat trick as the Clements, Horton and Clark combination was again successful to increase the lead to 3-0. This lead could have increased further but Clark shoots wide, Horton shoots straight at the goalkeeper and Mike Rowcliffe struck the side netting.
At the start of the second half Joe Moore replaced George Martin and Leigh White burst through on the left flank only to be brought down by Owen Lindsay who was booked by the referee for the challenge. Although a few more chances were created, Horton fired over the bar from a Clements corner and Clark struck the side netting after good approach play Moore and Rowcliffe, it was Staplegrove that began to gain possession and threaten the home defence.
A series of free kicks and corners were testing the defence and Ethan Johnson both made good headed clearances. Mark Brown came on for Clements and Rory Thomas for Rowcliffe to see out the game and close to the end Matt Hill gathered the ball from a free kick by David Richardson who was Staplegrove’s most threatening player.
This 3-0 win puts the Club in to 10th position with 34 points already bettering last season’s 14 place with 29 points with 2 games to play. A credit to Graham and his management team and the players on what has been a difficult season in a number of ways due to the wet winter disrupting fixtures, injuries and unavailability of players at crucial times.
Team:-
GK, Matthew Hill
Defence, Ollie Clements, Leigh White, Mark Rees, Ethan Johnson
Midfield, Mike Rowcliffe, Adam Caulfield, Chris Bradley, George Martin
Forwards, Jake Horton, Sam Clark
Subs: Joe Moore (for George Martin) Mark Brown (for Ollie Clements), Rory Thomas (for Mike Rowcliffe)
The Bill Gough man of the match was awarded to hat trick hero Sam Clark