Match Report 18/01/25: Woodkirk v Cowling - West Riding County Challenge Trophy

Cowling 1-2 Woodkirk

After what feels like forever we finally got around to kicking a ball around a pitch for 90 minutes on a Saturday.

This game had been postponed for the last two Saturdays, like pretty much every other grassroots game in the country. But there is a rule that no knew about at Woodkirk, the game gets switched after two postponements, Cowling did and exercised that right. Just the two hour plus round trip for us.

Onto the game itself, young Raph got given a starting berth after impressing for the reserves in recent matches. He didn't disappoint and can be proud of his debut. We started the better and got into our passing groove pretty early on and dealt with Cowling's direct approach without too much trouble. We got the opening goal with an absolute worldie from Cal Thorpe. We progressed up the pitch with brilliant, crisp football and then Thorpy nailed one into the corner from the corner of the box. We missed chances to double the lead and the hope was it wouldn't come back to bite us in the backside as it has in the first part of the season.

We came in at half time a goal to the good and the message was to look for more goals and kill the game.

Cowling started the second half better and quicker with more intent, we had to withstand a lot of balls into and around the box but JP and Jonny dealt with it without too much trouble. 

Cowling got their equaliser when a misplaced pass from us trying to play out from the back was cut out, it was moved to a player 20 yards out who drilled the ball home. 

We dusted ourselves off and Tom Whelan got what turned out to be the winner by reading the flick on from Christy, and sliding it past the keeper. We then missed some good chances to put the game to bed. A Whelan cross, come shot hit the post and O'neall's effort was cleared of the line. Scott Morton had an effort saved by the keeper too. 

At the other end we had to absorb a lot of pressure without Logan in goal having to make any noteworthy saves. Young Harry Bennett made a brilliant block inside the area. 

We saw out the 10 minutes of injury time to progress in the cup. 

Great performance from the lads and a real show of character to progress against direct, physical side. 

MOM - Jonny Downey, majestic at the back and dealt with everything thrown at him.