Rothbury 2 Red Row Welfare 6
Northern Football Alliance Division One
If the chants of ‘Kev Bell’s on fire’ weren’t ringing around
the Welfare Club on Saturday night, then they probably should have been.
The Red Row striker’s derby double took his tally to five in
two games – and just four days - since making the switch from neighbours
Stobswood.
Many in the Rothbury side know Bell and a number of other
players in the ‘Raa team well, but boss Dan Herron refused to use that fact as
any excuse for the result.
“I wouldn’t really call it a derby to be
fair, we do know some of them obviously from the North Northumberland and
Sunday leagues too, but I don’t think it had anything to do with the loss,” he
said.
“Kev Bell was dangerous for them all day. They’re
a physical hard-working team and probably deserved the win in the end, given
how flat we were in the second half,” he continued.
“It would have been nice to have gone in
1-0 up and see where we went because I thought we managed it well in the first
half - but it’s one we need to forget about and move on.”
Coquetdale hit-man Gareth McCann is on a decent scoring run
himself. The big number 9 chalked up his fourth of the season as he shot the
Reds in front in the 22nd minute. Latching onto a bouncing ball, the
striker fired into the roof of the net on the volley from the edge of the box with the Reds well on top.
But the hard work was undone as a nightmare ten minute spell
before the interval saw Red Row hit the back of the net three times in quick
succession through Luke Baston, Joe Henderson and Daniel Parker, leaving gaffer
Herron with a major headache for his half time team talk.
“We just gifted them three goals. It was
frustrating really because we limited them to two long range shots and a
speculative cross in the first half, and they went in 3-1 up!” said Herron.
“There’s nothing we could really say
because we were on top, but it clearly knocked the stuffing out of us. We tried
to rally at half time and had a couple of chances to get back to 3-2, but hit
the post and missed the target with others.”
Any hopes of a fight-back were sunk when Bell netted his
first just after the hour to effectively kill the game off. He’d hit a
hat-trick in his debut during an 8-1 drubbing of Gosforth Bohs in mid-week and
continued his golden run by beating keeper Paul Appleby.
Greg Woodburn gave Rothbury a glimmer of hope when he pulled
one back in the 83rd minute with a volleyed chip over the keeper
into the top corner. But they were hit on the break twice while pushing forward
late in the game as Bell added his second in the 88th minute and Louis
Shanks netted a killer sixth in stoppage time. Cue smiles all around in the
visitor’s dressing room after, and a sense of frustration for the hosts.
“When we started pushing they hit us on the
counter really well,” admitted the Rothbury boss.
“We’re continuing to learn all the time and
just have to accept the mistakes and move on. Driving consistency is going to
be a key focus because we can be affected by things that happen in a game, it’s
definitely something we need to manage. We move on quickly to Saturday again.”
His skipper Tom Macpherson was also gutted by the defeat,
not least because they’d wanted to build on a 2-1 success against Wallsend Boys
Club during the week.
“I feel we got out fought and we were
second to every ball, especially in the second half. We went chasing the game
far too early and lost our shape, but I think it’s all a learning curve for the
lads,” he said.
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