Sunderland Sunday League
Sunday, 7 February 2010
RCA The Barnes eventually won their encounter with table topping Silksworth Paragon, coming out 4-0 victors after a very entertaining match at Meadow Park on Sunday, to go third in the league with games in hand.
Paragon opened strongly and attacked for the first 15 minutes with RCA keeper Neal Atkinson making a superb double save early on to keep RCA in the game. RCA then began to get their act together and the game swung from end to end with some great passing from both sides. The breakthrough, however, came when man of the match, 17 year old midfielder, Jonathan Davis played a superb cross field 40 yard pass over the Paragon right back's head for RCA wing back Martin Metcalfe to run onto, calmly chest down in his stride and go on to confidently slip the ball under the Paragon's keeper to give RCA the lead after 30 minutes.
The match progressed in the same vein, with both sides playing attractive football, but after 40 minutes RCA took a decisive 2 - 0 lead when, after good interplay down the right wing the ball was cut back into the box and eventually landed at the feet of young Callum Charlton who smashed home into the top left hand corner to put RCA two up. Shortly afterwards RCA centre forward Willie Crew had to be substituted by Michael Turnbull, and the half time score remained 2-0 to RCA. Although Paragon would probably feel that this was slightly flattering, RCA had taken their chances and Paragon had not. RCA made another substitution at the break with Assistant Manager Glenn Moan coming on for Gary Tyzack, who had put in a great shift down the right side of the five man midfield.
The second half saw Paragon come out, unsurprisingly, with all guns blazing and the back three of RCA, McVay, Hall and Dunn, had to be at their best along with keeper Atkinson to keep Paragon at bay. Then RCA produced a gem of a goal to effectively kill off any chance of a Paragon revival. The ball was played out of defence by Paul Hartley up to Andy Place in the centre forward position with his back to goal and 35 yards out. He then turned his marker and seeing Metcalfe making a diagonal run from wide left he deftly flicked the ball over the Paragon back line for Metcalfe to run onto and delightfully chip the keeper to put RCA 3 - 0 up.
RCA then dominated the remainder of the game, playing some excellent posession football, but the fourth goal came via route one, when keeper Atkinson launched a long ball upfield into the inside left channel and sub Michael Turnbull chased it down, challenged both the defender and keeper and came out with the ball, rolling it into the empty net to put RCA clear at 4 - 0. Gary Carr was then introduced, after a long period out of the game injured, for a 15 minute cameo replacing the hard running Andy Place as RCA closed the game out.
More goals could have followed but the clock ran down and it finished 4 - 0 to RCA.
It's a cup quarter final next Sunday against Heppies, at Meadow Park, 10:30 AM KO.