Mallard Win Cup Thriller!

A second successive full programme was played on Sunday, and once again plenty of drama to go over, writes Darren “Statto” Jones.

Unity Nirankari’s County Cup adventure is over as they were comfortably beaten at St Josephs in South Oxhey. They’ll now play their first league game since September this Sunday!

In the KLM Challenge Cup, two keenly-anticipated ties at King George V. Division One side King Pin United were no match for their Division Two opponents, MBDA, who led through two Ashley Kersey strikes inside 20 minutes. The first was a glorious finish into the roof of the net from ten yards, before he smashed home from an angle after Gary Hodgson’s shot was saved. Unfortunately they lost Kyle Watson to a hamstring injury at the same time. Hodgson hit an absolute thunderbolt past Andrew Palfreyman before a rare goal from Paul Kersey, heading in off the crossbar, sewed up the tie with only a couple of minutes of the second-half played. James Wyatt pulled one back with a clever finish, but it was only a consolation against an excellent defensive line which was very difficult to break-down. They’d meet the winners of the tie on the adjoining pitch…

Probuild led 2-0, 3-2 and 5-3 before a terrific Mallard fightback saw them force extra-time. Probuild then led 7-5 as Arin Fehmi (5), Sam Spencer and Barry Greenway were on target. An unbelievable fourth comeback saw Mallard level thanks to Craig Reynolds (4) and Jim Bywater (3) and then win it with Perry Phillips strike with five minutes to spare. They’d shown tremendous character having played an hour with 10 men. It could’ve all been different as Mallard could’ve been down to nine men early on as Fehmi was brought down by the last defender, Adam Hazleton. This set up the only confirmed quarter-final.