Welton Sports AFC continued there impressive season with a 4-0 quarter final win in the Ron Eaglen Cup against The George (Mkt Rasen) sending them into the hat for tomorrows night's eagerly awaited semi-final draw.
Welton were missing players for the second week running through injury and holiday, but still fielded a strong line up with Matt wilks in goal, dave, danny and andy making up the back three, connor, lee, alex, bow and ross as midfield 5 with jason and ronnie up top. This left a strong bench of joel, steve and alex jackson who is currently enjoying some time off his punishing university schedule!!
The opening minutes were not pretty with welton struggling to find their usual rhythm, not helped by the ridiculously small pitch and driving rain! The george were clearly up for it and were flying into tackles causing welton to get frustrated and it took something special to break the deadlock. After around 20 forgettable minutes, a goalmouth scramble lead to the ball falling to jason on the 18 yard line who unleashed a thunderbolt of a left foot high into the roof of the net, which had the keeper got in the way it may well of took his head clean off his shoulders!! This seemed to settle welton a bit, but the rest of the first half never really got going and caretaker manager James Mulhall was glad to get his troops in at half time to try and instill a bit confidence into the camp.
Welton started the second half much brighter and began to show signs of their usual quality with chances now starting to come thick and fast. Tom bowey raced on to a through ball, but unfortunately could not convert the one on one, with his lack of games in 2012 it was time for the first change of the morning with joel replacing bow. This proved to be an inspired substitution as no more than 5 minutes on the pitch joel helped himself to welton's second. A mazy run lead to a driven shot from around 20 yards which took a kind deflection on route to loop over the outstretched arm of the george's keeper.
Welton now felt more comfortable with a 2 goal cushion and started to express themselves much better. The die hard supporters who had braved the awful conditions were not made to wait long for the third goal. Connor whipped in a corner and ross smashed home a right footed volley from 8 yards out to all but kill the game as a contest. This was to be connor's last contribution as steve smith came on to replace him. It was steve who had the next clean cut chance to score welton's fourth racing onto to a through ball, unfortunately god decided not to give him a left foot and he rather awkwardly tried to bend his right foot round it sending the ball wide of the post, much to the disappointment of the traveling fans who were relishing seeing his secret celebration t-shirt!
The george continued to press, but never really looked like hurting the back three who were solid as ever with dave having a particularly good game throwing himself at everything in order to protect welton's cleansheet.
The forth goal came with around 15 mins to go with jason whipping a lovely free kick onto danny's head giving the keeper no chance from 6 yards out. Stand in manager moley decided with the game effectively over it was only right to give alex jackson a ten minute run. Ever present last year, he just slotted into the middle of midfield like he had never been away.
The final minutes played out with no real excitement and welton sailed into the semi-final draw where they will face either Fox and Hounds, claytons, newton or a mouth watering tie against welton sports & social. Not bad considering certain people had doubted their cup pedigree.
The draw will be held at tomorrow night's league meeting and the breaking news will be announced later that evening exclusively on wsscfc.blogspot.com
Moley Magicians
Dave K ***
jason **
lee c *