A vastly improved second-half performance from Wentworth 1sts saw off a plucky Goodricke 3rds side in a game with plenty of goals but short on quality.
A drab first-half ended 0-0 before Wentworth decimated their opponents late on with two goals each from Greg Harrison and Dom Green, one from Tim Martin, and a Phil Hancock own goal. Four goals came inside the final ten minutes as Goodricke fell apart on a windswept and wet JLD.
In a first-half that was nothing to write home about, Goodricke still found the woodwork of their goal under siege, being hit three times, the only real highlights of an extremely scrappy opening where Goodricke tended to rely on pacey counter-attacks to threaten the College League champions. Greg Harrison had the pick of those, with a sliced left-footed effort from the edge of the area evading the goalkeeper. Meanwhile, Jack Fuller shot wide with Goodricke’s only really chance of the half.
Fortunately, Wentworth managed to salvage what some spectators were calling “the worst game of the College Cup this year” with six second-half goals as the rain subsided. Greg Harrison had been Wentworth’s best player through that poor first-half and opened the scoring six minutes after the break in an unorthodox manner.
After Wentworth won a corner on the left-hand side, Harrison stepped up to send the ball into the box. Instead though, a mixture of the curve on his inswinging ball and the wind on the astro saw the ball find its way onto the inside of the far post and into the net. Goodricke ‘keeper Noel Rogers had to be to blame, having been absolutely nowhere near Harrison’s curling effort as Wentworth finally took the lead.
Four minutes later the postgrads doubled their lead – Phil Hancock inadvertently putting the ball into his own net from a Dom Green flick on. Embarrassingly for Rogers in the Goodricke goal, he called out “‘keepers ball” as the effort rolled towards him, only to be left helplessly wanting as it found its way into the bottom corner.
Moving into the last ten minutes, Wentworth stepped up a gear as the men from Hes East dropped off, and the third goal came from arguably the most flowing move of the game. Green found Harrison on the right, who slipped the ball across to Tim Martin for a simple finish. Soon after, Dom Green grabbed a quickfire double to make it 5-0. His first came amind claims of handball against a Goodricke defender, before he added a second a minute later with a poachers finish from Ben Keane’s right-wing cross.
Finally, with four minutes to go, Man of the Match Harrison completed the rout with a delicate chipped finish from ‘keeper John Cock’s long ball that evaded the entirety of the Goodricke defence. The final whistle only served to put Goodricke out of their misery and prevent Wentworth adding further against the group’s bottom side who now have zero points and a goal difference of -21 after three games.