AFC Hayes 1  Northwood 4

Tuesday 31st July 2018

NORTHWOOD
1	Luke Sheldrick
2	Sam Jenkins
3	Matt Cooper
4	Chris Gosling
5	Bradley Marriott
6	Ben Andreos
7	Jerome Slew
8	Kieran Asumadu-Sakyi
9	Ben Pattie
10	James Ewington
11	Emmanuel Melford-Rowe
Substitutes
12	Kweku Conrad-Lucan
14	Karl Stevenson
15	Miguel Matos
16	Cameron Ferguson
17	Rhys Shirley-Clarke
18	Charlie Morgan
19	Hakeem Nyariki

Northwood came from behind to comfortably overcome their Combined Counties opponents on a excellent playing surface at Merchant Taylors' School.

The green carpet of a pitch encouraged Woods'  passing game and they created a succession of chances in the early stages, with Ben Pattie spurning a number of opportunities.

James Ewington thought he had scored on a couple of occasions but was denied by an offside flag as Northwood continued to dominate.

But it was AFC Hayes  who opened the scoring against the run of play as Woods' goalkeeper Luke Sheldrick saw his attempted clearance rebound off team-mate Chris Gosling and converted for a simple goal in the 37th minute.

However, Woods deservedly drew level on 49 minutes when Kieran Asumadu-Sakyi latched onto a quickly taken free-kick to feed Pattie, who rolled the ball home.

The early stages of the second period saw the obligatory change of personnel with a number of substitutions but Northwood maintained the quality of their play and they took the lead on 62 minutes as Pattie converted from the penalty spot after Emmanuel Melford-Rowe was brought down.

Woods continued to dominate proceedings and they extended their lead on 84 minutes as Jerome Slew played in Rhys Shirley-Clarke for a neat finish.

And Slew put the icing on impressive Northwood performance as he made it 4-1 with an emphatic strike on 86 minutes.

REPORT by Robin Piper
PHOTOS by Alan Evans