Woodstock Sports 0-4 Corinthian - I'm hoping we can pull something out of the bag, says Ben Taylor

Corinthian lead at the halfway stage of the delayed semi-final thanks to two goals from striker Mark Axel, a volley from midfielder Chris Kinnear and a quality strike from talented 21-year-old winger Adam Marsh, although skipper Ryan Johnson picked up his second yellow card towards the end of the game.

Corinthian are certain to progress through to the final, when they will play VCD Athletic, who came away from back-to-back holders Herne Bay with a 2-1 win at Winch’s Field, winning 3-1 on aggregate and Ricky Bennett’s side have the proud statistic of beating Simon Halsey’s Kent League leaders for the third time this season.

Corinthian boss Tony Sitford heaped plenty of praise on to coach Matt Longhurst, who had the visitors’ well drilled for this game.

Sitford said: “Delighted with the result but what’s more pleasing is the fact we’ve come down here and every player has given 150% effort.  They’ve all worked very, very hard.

“We came down here with a plan.  The coach has worked with them on a certain pattern of play and it’s absolutely marvellous when they come down and carry it out. I was delighted with them.

“We knew what was going to come.  We know how they was going to play.”

Taylor,  who got through 90 minutes without picking up a card from Lewisham based referee Mr Paul Howard, admitted his side didn’t turn up in their first ever Kent League Cup Semi-Final.

The central defender said: “It weren’t very good, but fair play to Corinthians, they totally deserved it to be honest.  We didn’t turn up. They turned up, they were hungry, winning all the first and second balls and took their chances.

“We had one or two chances really, not very good ones, but they deserve it.   We cut our own throats really.”

Woodstock Sports went into the game on the back of winning their last seven games at home, but their team put in a poor performance on a big night for the Sittingbourne based club.

Corinthian's journey home, however, was delayed as their team bus suffered a flat tyre in the club car park.

Played on a poor playing surface, Woodstock Sports created the first chance inside the opening two minutes when Lewis Rankin cut a corner back to left-back Lewis Taylor and he took a touch before whipping in a cross with his left foot but central midfielder Lee Hockey sent a downward header into Daniel Bygrave’s gloves.

Corinthian tried their luck with speculative efforts from outside the box; Marsh cracked a left-footed volley over his shoulder and wide of the far post, before Alfie May was denied by home keeper Rankin, who tipped his right-footed volley around the post.

Corinthian went close again, this time following Joe Minter’s corner from the left, which Woodstock keeper Rankin flicked away from underneath his own crossbar and James Lyons – who formed a formidable partnership beside Jamie Blewden at the heart of defence – flashed a low cross across the face of goal and May’s low shot at the far post was blocked.

Woodstock felt they had broken the stalemate halfway through a tight first half when Lewis Rankin got in behind Corinthian right-back Minter and whipped in a precise cross with his left foot to pick out striker James McDonald, his looping header appeared to have caught out Bygrave but the keeper managed to gather at the final second.

Taylor admitted his side were pumping ball after ball high into the air “far too much”, which was food-and-drink for a resilient Corinthian back-four.

He said: “That’s not us playing football.  I don’t know what’s up with us tonight. We didn’t get going. The first half was terrible.  Second half we tried a little but they scored again. I’m just gutted really.”

Kinnear had a sighter when he cracked a speculative right-footed volley, which was comfortably saved by Rankin in the home side’s goal, before Corinthian took a 35^th minute lead.

Minter’s threw the ball in from the right and Axel, Johnson and May were denied by a wall of defenders but Axel persevered and wriggled his way through before stabbing a right-footed shot past Rankin and the ball nestled into the bottom right-hand corner of the net.

Both managers admitted it wasn’t the greatest of goals.

Sitford said: “He’s just persevered, put his foot in and it’s gone in. It’s one of those scrambly goals – we’ll take that all day!”

Taylor added: “Scrappy! Horrible goal really!  Nutmegged out player on the line but it was meant to be.  It was their night tonight. I can’t make no excuses. We made hard work of it.  They deserved it so fair play to them!”

However, Woodstock Sports squandered an excellent chance to immediately restore parity and Taylor was disappointed with Lewis Rankin’s finish when left unmarked on the edge of the Corinthian penalty area, the winger cracking a right-footed drive over.

Taylor said: “I think he didn’t have more time than he thought and he just lashed at it to be honest.”

Corinthian should have doubled their lead four minutes before half-time when Kinnear released Marsh down the right and the impressive winger cut in before clipping the ball across to Johnson, who dragged his right-footed shot across the keeper and also wide of the far post.

Corinthian boss Sitford revealed what he said to his players’ during the interval and they came out with all guns blazing and they doubled their lead five minutes into the second half with a corner kick routine that was practised for many hours at Gay Dawn Farm over the past couple of weeks.

He said: “My exact words were ‘keep doing what the coach has asked you to do’.  Just keep persevering and you’ll come away with a result.”

Left-back Ben Wilson swung in an excellent corner from the right which was met by a powerful header from the unmarked Axel, whose header flew above Rankin’s head and crashed into the roof of the net.

Sitford added: “Great header! Great goal!  It was a great goal because we worked on that in training. That’s the pleasing thing.  It was a touch your socks job. It was all in there, we loaded it in and he got his head on it.  It was tremendous!

“Two-nil up, you want another one don’t you.  I thought we were playing well enough at the time to possibly get another one!”

Taylor was seething with his team-mates for conceding from a set-piece.

“He’s had a free header in the box. It’s gone over the keeper’s head. You’ve got a team the size of them, you’re going to work on that corner so they’ve done a number on us. You can’t say much more. I’m just gutted!”

Woodstock Sports were now facing a mountain to climb, even more so when Kinnear scored his second goal of the season, with a sweet low volley, just three minutes later.

This time it was right-back Minter, who whipped in another excellent cross from the right and the ball dropped down towards Kinnear’s feet and the midfielder cracked an excellent low right-footed volley, which gave Rankin no chance as the ball nestled into the bottom right-hand corner.

Sitford added: “A good finish from Chris and then we kept the cream until last, didn’t we?!”

That goal knocked the stuffing out of a poor Woodstock side, as they continued to pump the ball high into the night sky.

Corinthian should have scored their fourth goal halfway through the second half when Ben Taylor’s intended back-pass towards Jack Rankin was intercepted by an alert May, but he bent a low right-footed shot around the far post.

Woodstock almost pulled a goal back in the final fourteen minutes when right-back John Emmerson looped a throw into the box and Lewis Rivett’s header was headed off the Corinthian line with Bygrave beaten.

The home side went close again when substitute Frazer Rogers played the ball out of defence to release winger Joe Sands, who cut the ball back to Louis Valencia and his cross picked out McDonald at the far post, but the 21-goal striker’s downward header was saved by Bygrave, low to his right.

Corinthian lost their skipper Johnson in the 88^th minute for kicking the ball away, five minutes after escaping with a yellow card for a two-footed lunge on Ben Taylor.

“He should’ve got a straight red all day long,” fumed Taylor.  “If it was one of our players doing that, he’d probably would’ve gone but he’s got his yellow card so we didn’t moan too much. We asked the ref ‘how come?.

“It was a two-footed tackle straight on me!  He come straight over the top of his own player, went two footed on me. The ref gave a yellow card but he (later) kicked the ball away and the ref didn’t even give him a card for that.  It’s only because a few players and the crowd were moaning he gave no choice but to do it because he kicked the ball away when the whistle had gone. It’s his own fault.”

Sitford, meanwhile, revealed he was preparing to take off his skipper before he lost his cool.

He said: “The sad bit was we were just taking him off. We’ve just got his number off to take him off. His reacted silly, again, I don’t exactly know what’s happened for him to be sent-off to be honest.  It’s a bit of a blow to us.”

Corinthian scored the best goal of the night inside stoppage time when substitute Danny Nash released Marsh down the left channel before cutting inside Ben Taylor.  The Woodstock player-boss had a chance to clear his lines but didn’t, but what was to follow was a quality finish from Marsh, a right-footed curler which flew over Rankin’s head and sailed into the roof of the net. 

Sitford said: “The fourth goal was brilliant, a top, top quality goal.  The kid deserved it because he worked hard all night.  He’s made a lot of difference to us. He hasn’t been playing. He went down to Whitstable, I think, he didn’t enjoy it so he just left.

“This boy Marsh, he’s a livewire.  He’s brave, technically a very good player.”

Taylor admitted he was at fault before Marsh scored the screamer.

He said: “Great finish!  I gave the ball away. I was stupid.  I should’ve put the ball in the hole but it’s just frustration.  I should’ve been better than that but what can I say? I’m Gutted!”

When asked what went wrong tonight, Taylor replied, “I don’t know!  I don’t know if it’s the occasion. I don’t know if it’s the loss we had at Tunbridge Wells.  I don’t know if it was because we didn’t have a settled side.  

“Normally whatever team we put out we show a lot of b*****ks, a lot of heart. Tonight we didn’t. We didn’t turn up so I’m really disappointed.”

Corinthian are the favourites to reach the final when the two sides lock horns again for the second leg at Gay Dawn Farm on Tuesday 20 March.

But Sitford warns it will not be easy.

He said: “We’ve got another game, it’s half-time.  They’ve got to score five goals and we just have to go out there and do the business the best we can.  They’ll be a hard team to beat. Don’t worry about that! 

“It won’t be as easy as people think.  You’re 4-0 up.  It don’t work like that.  You’ve only got to look at Arsenal.  They were unlucky not to come back so it’s not a forgone conclusion.

“We hope to get the ball down and play because they’re going to play the same way, full of energy, full of effort and we know what they’re tactics will be so we’ll work on those so hopefully we’ll keep the ball a little bit better playing down on our ground.

“It’ll be great for us to get to a Final.  It will be the icing on the cake if we get there.”

Taylor, meanwhile, says he is optimistic that his side can pull off the miracle and win the away leg 5-0 next week.

“Football’s a strange old thing. They’ve done it to us.  Why can’t we do it to them?  I’m optimistic!” he said.

“We’ve scored five away at Erith Town (in the quarter-finals) so there’s no reason why we can’t go and get another five.

“It will be f*****g hard work but Arsenal almost done it the other day against Inter Milan so why can’t we?

When asked how his side will pull off the miracle, Taylor said: “I’m optimistic. It’s going to be a big ask.  Just keep the ball down and play and we’ll play around them.  It’s as simple as that! 

“They’re a big side, big lumps. All they kept doing was booting the ball up in the air.  If we get round the back of them, that’s the way.  We’ll play our football. We’ve beaten enough teams like it.

“I’m hoping we can pull something out of the bag. It’s a semi-final, we’ve let ourselves down. We just have to get ourselves back up now.

“It will be a miracle but if anyone can do it – we can do it!

“I won’t say we’ve lost because we ain’t lost.  Never say never but it will take one big effort and it will take Corinthian to fold a bit.  Get an early goal, who knows what happens. The legs start twitching.  Get another early goal.  We won’t go there thinking we’ve lost already because it’s not natural with us. It never has been!”

Woodstock Sports: Jack Rankin, John Emmerson, Lewis Taylor, Ben Taylor, Lee Hockey (Frazer Rogers 57), Lewis Rivett, Robert Welling (Joe Sands 51), Tony Clark, James McDonald, Louis Valencia, Lewis Rankin (Michael Green 65).
Subs: Josh Davidson, Chriss Miller

Corinthian: Daniel Bygrave, Joe Minter, Ben Wilson, Chris Kinnear, James Lyons, Jamie Blewden, Adam Marsh, Jamie Taylor, Mark Axel, Ryan Johnson, Alfie May (Danny Nash 81).
Subs: Vincenzo Wade, Ben Cooper, Zack Foster Fields

Goals: Mark Axel 35, 50, Chris Kinnear 53, Adam Marsh 90

Booked: Ryan Johnson 83

Sent Off: Ryan Johnson 88

Attendance: 87
Referee: Mr Paul Howard (Lewisham, London SE13)
Assistants: Mr Issaac Searle (Herne Bay) & Mr Ollie Woodrow (Maidstone)