Saturday, 17 April 2010
skilltrainingltd Northern League Division 2
Sunderland RCA FC are promoted after winning today as Marske United FC were beaten by Seaham Red Star FC.
A great day in the history of Sunderland RCA and the second half performance by the players today was at times breathtaking. North Shields, to their credit, did not come to Meadow Park to defend and for periods in the game did well but in the end the result could have been 4 or 5 - 1.
The manager brought in experienced defender Matthew Hysen for his first start at Meadow Park to replace Daryll Hall.
The game started in dramatic fashion when, after 30 seconds, a bad bounce evaded Shields captain Smith and let in McBryde but his first time effort was easily saved by Robinson.
RCA were intent on attacking and a cross from O'Riordan found Kokes, but his effort was blocked by Elliott. A corner from Stewart was not cleared by the Shields defence and the ball fell to McBryde who stabbed the ball through a crowd of players, but straight at Robinson.
Within a minute Akinbolu thought he had opened the scoring when he brushed aside Jones to fire past Hoggeth, but the officials deemed that he had fouled Jones in the process.
The game was held up for five minutes when Livermore landed awkwardly and was unable to continue, he was taken to hospital to have his arm checked over. Substitute Harris almost made an instant impact when he fired narrowly wide with his first tough of the ball.
A long ball was headed out of defence by Smith, but was picked up on the half way line by Wardle who strode forward with the ball before unleashing a tremendous shot which dipped under the crossbar, giving Robinson no chance. 1-0 at half time and although RCA had not played that well they probably just deserved to be in front.
The start of the second half saw RCA make defensive changes a reshuffle in the back four meant that Jones went to his more customary right back slot and Ash Davis was introduced at left back.
RCA got into gear straight away with Stewart forcing a save from Robinson and soon after McBryde fired narrowly over after some good build up play between Stewart and Halliday. Shields came back into the game with Hay shooting narrowly wide from 20 yards out and then catastrophe as Wardle, the hero of the first half, handled inside the penalty area when the ball looked to be going for a goal kick. Hay stepped up and scored from the spot.
It was that man Hay again who almost doubled his tally when he beat the offside trap but fire well over the bar.
RCA were finding it difficult to live with Shields and in particular Hay in this 10 minute spell. Weather the storm they did and when Kokes fired home it looked all over, unfortunately the assistant disallowed the goal. The reprieve was short lived as within five minutes Kokes pounced on a misunderstanding between Robinson and Smith to steer the ball into an empty net. It was all RCA now as they went to kill the game off a shot from Halliday went narrowly wide and Davison's brilliant strike rebounded off the post.
In the 87th minute RCA went 3-1 up when McLeod stabbed the ball home after a goal mouth scramble. By then news had drifted through that near neighbours Seaham Red Star FC had beaten Marske United and the promotion celebrations were underway.
