FA VASE SECOND QUALIFYING ROUND

St Blazey 3 Millbrook 0

ST BLAZEY’S progress into the first round proper of the FA Vase was anything but plain sailing as they came up against a stubborn Millbrook at Blaise Park on Saturday.

The Green and Blacks, riding high in the Western League Premier Division, were expected to see off their South West Peninsula League Premier West opponents with few problems, and when Kai Burrell scored in the third minute, the writing was on the wall.

But Millbrook weren’t reading it and it took until the 89th minute for Blazey – and Burrell – to double their lead before Harry Blows’ last kick of the tie goal gave the scoreline a flattering look.

Blazey manager Dan Hart said: “Yesterday’s game was about progression. I always felt that Millbrook would be well organised, I noted they’d kept Saltash at bay in pre-season with solid out of possession structure work and this turned out to be the case.

“Despite our first goal coming early, they didn’t come out of that shell and I’d commend them in the way they stuck to their gameplan, knowing that one moment can throw open an FA Vase tie which goes directly to penalty kicks.

“We were intent on staying patient against such a low block, which is difficult and can become very frustrating, so I was relatively pleased with how we did that throughout the 90 minutes.

“In the closing five to 10 minutes, Millbrook had to come out and try to find that moment to take it to a shootout. In that short spell, we took over and dominated in the spaces we hadn’t been allowed and scored two late goals.

“Overall, while I’d liked us to have gone and scored many more goals, creating enough opportunities to have 26 efforts on goal gives me enough satisfaction despite being wasteful on a lot of occasions.

“Full respect to Millbrook, they were game and resilient and looked very together. They looked like they had everybody back fit and available perhaps yesterday, and hopefully that stands them in a good position to kick their league campaign on.

“For us, two huge games this week at home to Torpoint on Wednesday evening, and travelling to Sidmouth on Saturday. Huge opportunities and huge tests for our group.”

Millbrook boss Rohan Brown said: “I was really proud of how we managed the game. We worked on our shape during the week and had a clear set-up with the ball and without the ball which we executed well.

“Plan was to be compact and difficult to play through but have our ball carriers in good positions on transition to impact as much as we could.

“I was disappointed in our start, going a goal down inside three minutes, we hadn’t tracked our runners but then we settled and battled.

“We knew we wouldn’t see a lot of the ball so we had to make good use of it when we did have it. We had a great opportunity to level the game at the end of the first half with Lars (Will Larsen) in one-v-one, but the keeper made a great save.

“As the game went on the quality of Blazey started to show, and to be fair they carved out a lot of possession in and around our box, but our shape meant that chances were from distance or forced errors with the final ball.

“Then we decided to push for it and committed bodies up the pitch to try and get an equaliser, but the risk is always being exposed and Blazey made it count.”

ST BLAZEY: Kyle Moore, Todd Hanrahan, Tom Strike, Sam Clifton, Jordan Bentley, Aaron Bentley, Olly Redd, Ben Fowles, Kai Burrell, Harry Blows, Cam Hutchison.

Subs: Will Tinsley, Tallan Mitchell, Mac Dewsnap (gk), Teigan Rosenquest, Tom Cavanagh.

MILLBROOK: Tom Burstow, Cam Stephens (Body Halls), Toby Burt, Jason Richards (Charlie Brown), Tyler Jones, Abu Camara, Josh Babb, Kobi Lau (Will Burns), Luke Jones (Ben Dodds), James Geraghty (Sam Cox), Will Larsen.