Tuesday, 9 November 2010
Durham County Challenge Cup Second Round
On a cold night at Meadow Park Sunderland RCA entertained Chester-le-Street in the Second Round of the Durham County Challenge Cup. RCA manager Neil Hixon made a number of changes from the side that drew with Spennymoor Town at the weekend with David Duke, Joe Fairish and Gavin Parkin coming into midfield and John Ryan and Martin Smith returning up front.
It was the cold perhaps that produced the uneventful first half that saw both sides evenly matched and goalmouth action held to a minimum. Chester-le-Street did their best to force an opening but their attacking play was easily dealt with by the RCA defence and their frontline was resigned to speculative efforts that rarely looked like troubling Gary Hoggeth in the RCA goal.
The best chance of the first half fell to RCA. Some well-worked possession play down the right flank resulted in Steve Jones pushing forward. His perfect ball, deep to the back post, allowed Ryan to pull off his defender with a simple piece of movement. Six yards out Ryan rose to meet the cross but with the goal at his mercy he headed over.
The second half produced a far more eventful contest. Chester-le-Street were attacking with intent and causing some dangerous moments in and around the RCA penalty area that required some last ditch defending by Carl Beasley and James Oates.
Just before the hour mark RCA brought on Joe Walton for Micky Coghlan with Fairish switching infield. Walton had begun to make an impact. His strong and direct running was committing Chester-le-Street defenders and opening up spaces along the backline. RCA were able to exploit the gaps in the Chester-le-Street defence when Parkin was sent through on goal. One-on-one with the keeper the chance presented itself invitingly for Parkin to open up his body and pick his spot with his right foot. However, he let the ball run across his body giving Kyle Barlow the chance to close the angle and Parkin’s left footed effort went agonisingly wide.
From the resulting goalkick Chester-le-Street were able to slip Gary Shields through on goal and the ex-RCA man made no mistake sliding the ball underneath Hoggeth to give Chester-le-Street the lead.
The goal seemed to wake RCA, and, with the introduction of Chris Smith in the centre of midfield for Fairish, RCA began to pass the ball better looking with every opportunity to feed Walton on the right hand side.
The warning signs were there for Chester-le-Street when on two occasions Walton beat his man to get to the byline only for Barlow first to pull off an excellent save from Martin Smith and then to be helped out by his defence who did just enough to upset Parkin when he looked likely to score. But with 15 minutes remaining a cross from the right found Martin Smith at the back post who hung well in the air to head in off the post despite the gallant efforts from Barlow.
With credit to Chester-le-Street, the set back did not make their heads drop and they continued to look potent in attack. With ten minutes remaining a string of corners led to some desperate and heroic defending in the RCA box and claims for a penalty despite the suggested handball being two yard outside the box.
With five minutes remaining RCA produced a goal fit to win any football match. The excellent Walton tore down the right and dropped a ball in the centre of the goal for Ryan to volley clinically home and set up a Quarter Final tie with Gateshead.
