Sunday League Cup Second Round
Sunday, 30 January 2011
Following last weekend's disappointing exit from the FA Sunday Cup at the hands of the outstanding Liverpool outfit Oyster Maryrs, RCA The Barnes got back to domestic matters with a testing second round tie in the League Cup against fellow Premiership outfit PTA Hastings.
Both clubs had seriously understrength squads to choose from and in fact RCA had only 11 players at ko, due to both injuries to McMahon and Newby, Curtis being in Berlin and Charlton and Davis disembarking from the Amsterdam ferry at North Shields and trying to get to Meadow Park as soon as possible. Other absentees were James Dixon and recent signing Lee Harrison.
Hastings had similar problems and were forced to bring in stalwarts Rogers and Grant for first games for a whlle.
RCA started with Atkinson in goal, Holden, McVay, Hall and Hughes across the back with Fabio, Jordan, Crew and Marni in the middle and Place and new signing Uttah Ubong up front.
Neither team started particularly strongly, but Hastings were probably just edging it and duly took the lead after 20 minutes when Ross Kennedy fired home from close range after a good move down the left flank. Willie Crew should have levelled for RCA after 35 minutes when he controlled a ball over the top and from no more than six yards out in the centre of goal managed to skew his shot two yards wide of the left hand post, so 1-0 to Hastings at half time.
The second half saw RCA's two Amsterdam returnees introduced for Fabio and Ubong (who had shown some nice touches in the first half) and they began to take control of the match and eventually equalised through a cool finish from Callum Charlton after 65 minutes. However, as is often the case, they switched off from the kick off and allowed Sparky Davidson a free header inside the six yard box that Atkinson saved brilliantly, but the ball rebounded into the retreating Metcalfe and spun into the net for an OG.
RCA got their heads up and continued to pressure the Hastings defence and after 85 minutes got their deserved reward when Willie Crew latched onto a through ball just ahead of Hastings keeper Minniss and slotted home calmly to take the game into extra time.
RCA then immediately took the lead for the first time when captain Phil Hall headed home a corner at the far post after just two minutes of extra time and despite a slight recovery from Hastings the first half of extra time saw RCA still leadinG 3 - 2. The second half saw RCA totally dominant against a visibly tiring Hastings and further goals were added by Metcalfe and the impressive Place to book RCA a place in the third round.
All in all a very enjoyable game from two fully committed teams.