Wednesday, 17 August 2011
STL Northern League Division 1
RCA won a scintillating match against a strong Consett team. Neil Hixon made one forced change to the team that drew with Shildon on Saturday, bringing in Lee Owens for Gavin Barton.
RCA twice came from behind in the first half, but managed to go in at the break even at 2-2. The second half saw RCA dominant in the opening 30 minutes taking a 4-2 lead before conceding a penalty late in the game, but were able to hold on in a desperate end to the game.
The result looked far from clear cut when Blandford made it 1-0 after just eight minutes, rifling home from 20 yards. Then Walton had two good chances to increase the lead, firing one effort just inches wide and having another deflected out for a corner.
RCA made Consett pay by equalising on 32 minutes. Centre-forward Mark Davison, leading the line in superb fashion all night, found the space to set up Jones to finish past Peter Jameson from an acute angle.
Two minutes before half-time Mackay restored the Steelmen's lead when he capitalised on a mistake by visiting keeper Gary Hoggeth, who came 20 yards out of his box to clear a long ball, only to hit it against Mackay, who hooked it round two defenders for a fine opportunist goal, after Carl Beasley just failed in a last ditch attempt to clear the ball.
RCA went in level at half-time when a long throw from McGuinness was flicked on at the near post, and Lee Owens stole in unmarked to prod home from a couple of yards.
In the 53rd minute RCA took the lead for the first time when a long ball from McGuinness caught the Consett defence out and Scorer's header back pass was fumbled by the keeper with Owens was on hand to fire home.
RCA increased their lead 10 minutes later when a freekick from Walton found Davies in acres of space at the far post and he made no mistake from 10 yards.
Consett pulled one back with six minutes left when Bell was brought down in the box and Mackay tucked away the resulting penalty. This set up an amazing five minutes of play in which Consett threw everything at RCA and only some great defending and one brilliant save from Hoggeth kept the score at 3 – 4.
This was a great result and performance from the whole RCA team in what will probably be our last league visit to Belle Vue Park.