Haltwhistle Jubilee 8 Rothbury 1
NFA Minor Cup Round 4
It was wet, it was dark and the mood was miserable. The
Rothbury side’s body language as the fourth goal rippled into the back of the
net said it all - shaking heads, hands on hips, whispered curses. It was
blatantly obvious at that point that the Reds were out of the Minor Cup and
they couldn’t wait for the final whistle to come around quick enough.
Haltwhistle were direct, physical and fast and they kept
piling the agony on the Coquetdalers with a second half blitz on a boggy pitch
as they didn’t ease their foot off the gas at all. The Jubilee have got some
pedigree in the County competition and they are hungry to go far again this
season – with several pondering on the touchline long before the end the
possibility of reaching the final against someone like Hexham as they weighed
up who was left in the tournament.
However, Rothbury may look back and feel it might have been
a different story had the referee brandished a red card instead of a yellow
when Chrissy Coe was taken out by a lunging defender – the last man - as he
bore down on goal five minutes before the interval in a much more finely
balanced first half.
But these are the ifs, buts, and maybes that you mull over
on the long journey home in the blackness after taking a heavy defeat. Haltwhistle
deserved to progress and to be fair to Rothbury, they continued to get the ball
down and attempt to play their possession game even as the net was stretched
with frightening regularity during the collapse.
Division Two leaders Haltwhistle went ahead on the half hour
as keeper Rob Hodgson was put under pressure from a corner and pawed the ball
out from under the bar. Dion Parker had time to spin and drive it in low from
around 12 yards to make the breakthrough.
Hodgson made a great diving save to parry away a well-hit
volley soon after, before
James Jackson saw a left foot effort skid just wide at the
other end. When Coe was sent tumbling – he was out on the left edge of the box
but had done his marker for pace – Tony Brown curled in the free kick and the
Jubilee stopper was awarded a free kick while under similar pressure to that
put on Hodgson.
Everything went up in smoke for the Reds after the break. A
defensive howler let in Callum James to lift the second over the sprawling
keeper just four minutes after the turnaround and when a low driven cross-shot from
Thomas Wilkie was deflected in for the third within seven minutes, it knocked
the stuffing out of the Reds. When a
tidy cut-back was tucked away by Jack Barker for the fourth shortly after it
was absolutely game over.
The horror show continued when James found himself unmarked
in acres of space to fire his second through the exposed Hodgson’s legs to make
it 5-0 in the 65th minute and Greg Irwin made it six within sixty
seconds as they were running Rothbury ragged, quicker into the tackle, exposing
spaces and exploiting blunders on the sodden surface to the full.
Rothbury pulled one back when Brown was obstructed in
turning his marker in the box and he stepped up to tuck away the penalty, but it
was barely a consolation.
Sam Proudlock sliced the seventh into his own net under
pressure in the six yard box just a few minutes later and the rampant hosts’
Ashley Lally sent the eighth skidding home not long after that.
Rothbury boss Dan Herron was left to rue a number of
individual mistakes – seven of the goals coming from errors – that saw his side
take such a dramatic nosedive out of the Cup.
But like Henry Hill said in the movie Goodfellas – everyone takes a beating now and then. Move on. Fuggetaboutit. It’s how they bounce back
from that beating that counts now for the Armstrong Park outfit.
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