Broadheath Central 1 v 5 AFC Waverton Wasps

Cheshire Junior Cup – Round 3 (30^th October 2011)

 

Waverton Scorers (season's total in brackets)

 

Matt Sheen  -  2 (9)

Aaron Hassall  -  2 (7)

Charlie Jones  -  1 (5)

 

Report

 

There are two key things to say about this performance; 1) it was better than the match against Upton! and 2) it was good enough to put Waverton through to the last sixteen of the Cheshire Cup. It still wasn't the fluent Wasps team from a few weeks back though, and truth be told they should have despatched Broadheath by a much bigger margin.

 

Broadheath took the field with just ten men, and in a sparkling opening few minutes it looked like Waverton were really going to make this numerical advantage count. Firstly Aaron Hassall latched on to a through ball and cleverly lobbed the keeper to open the scoring, and then shortly afterwards Matt Sheen met a strong low cross from Sam Jones turning it past the keeper to make the score 2-0 with barely 10 minutes gone.

 

Although Waverton continued to dominate possession though, their performance went a bit flat from here on in. Both Matt and Aaron added second goals before the break, to give the Wasps a convincing 4-0 lead, but there were already signs as the half progressed that they were letting a combative Broadheath team back into the game more than they should have done.

 

Despite a request from the coaches for the Wasps to "up their game" in the second period this never really happened. At 4-0 it was as if both teams had accepted the game was over as a contest, and the result was a very flat half of football. Waverton continued to hold the majority of the ball, but they rarely looked like breaking down Broadheath again, with the ten men showing good spirit in defence. Charlie Jones did add a fifth goal just before the end, with the best finish of the day flying into the top corner of the net, but then Waverton sloppily conceded a goal at the other end almost straight after, although Broadheath probably deserved to have something to show for their efforts.

 

The 5-1 score line will probably look good on the Cheshire Cup website, but the players knew at the end that it could (and indeed should) have been more. Job done though, and into the final 16, but if Waverton are to go one step further than two years ago in this competition they will need to put together some stronger performances than this in future rounds as the opposition gets tougher.