Wealdstone 4 – 0 Hitchin Town
Wealdstone4 - 0
Hitchin TownSaturday was Stones best of the season and this was better! A far greater battle and a more convincing win as stones ran out 4-0 victors over Hitchin Town.
A change to the line-up saw Lee Chappell replace goal scorer from Saturday, Josias Carbon who suffrage an injury, but it didn’t disrupt Stones who for the first time in a long time at home started the most confident side and perhaps just shaded the first 25 minutes of an exciting game. Certainly they had the best early chances when Dean Papali 1-on-1 was blocked by the visiting keeper who also saved Wayne Cort’s follow up.
In the same period, though Hitchin played some fast and fluid football on the good surface, Stoned back-line held firm and Lee Carroll again had nothing to worry him.
Stones opened the scoring on 31 minutes when Montgomery broke down the left and cut inside before hitting a low shot from fully 30 yards. The keeper scrambled across the goal to make the save but couldn’t hold on, and Papali ran in to nick the re-bound and put Stones in front.
Five minutes later and Montgomery again took a free kick from 25 yards on the right. His rasping, curling shot came back off the post and Papali again got onto the rebound to score Stones second.
On top of their game Wealdstone continued to press and the impressive Donnelly, Hall and O’Leary bossed the centre of midfield creating chances for the forwards and blocking whatever Hitchin threw at them – on the odd occasion Hitchin did get through the midfield, Martin, Martin and Moore cleared up at the back releasing the ball to Chappell and Montgomery to push forward.
With half time approaching Donnelly got involved going forward and collecting the ball some 25 yards from goal, he sidestepped his defender and looked up before striking an excellent shot into the top corner beyond the grasp of Beckwith in the visitors goal to give Stones a 3-0 half time lead.
The second half started in similar vein to the first as a fairly even contest, though again Stones had the better of the chances, but it wasn’t until the 70th minute that they scored again. Beckwith fumbled a long shot with Papali close by and as the Stones forward stole the ball on the six yard line looking to score he was rugby tackled to the ground by the keeper who conceded the penalty and collected a red card for his trouble. Papali strode up and scored the penalty past Parker who had taken on the ‘keeper’s role.
It ended the game as a contest as Stones played a little keep ball and took their foot off the gas for the last twenty minutes with a job well done, and the fans hoping for more of the same on Saturday.
Wealdstone:Lee Carroll, Lee Chappell, Fergus Moore, Carl Martin, Ben Martin, Graham Hall s76 Josh Cooper, Chris O’Leary, Scott Donnelly 43, Wayne Cort s69 Matt Gooderick, Dean Papali 31,35,p70 s76 Dean Clark, Graeme Montgomery, Subs Not Used: Mitch Swain, Kevin Swift