Morgan in search of 'killer touch'

TRIM MORGAN is confident of claiming his first trophy as North boss tonight, but to do so, his team need to discover the killer touch. The chocolate-and-blues make the short journey across the road to the Corbet Field to meet Vale Rec in the Stranger Cup final and despite not enjoying the best run of late, their manager expects his side to be up for the occasion.

'Our league form has been inconsistent, but there is a trophy at stake and I think it will be a decent game,' said Morgan, who moved from Rec to take over the reins at Northfield earlier this season.

'We have been confident going into our games, we have just got to work on a couple of areas. There are one or two things to improve for next season and this is the time to do that.'

Vale won their recent league meeting 3-1 in a match indicative of North's recent problems.

'We played quite well and had most of the possession,' said Morgan, 'but we did not finish off our chances and that has been our problem. We have lacked that killer touch.

'Training is going well and morale is good. We have just got to turn it around on the pitch.'

Morgan has Michael Wilson unavailable and Steve Ozanne is suspended.

His Rec counterpart, Chris Hamon, will be without long-term injury victims Danny Bisson, David MacNab and Matt Patch while James Coquelin is serving a suspension.

However, Dave Woodhead and Shaun Robert are back in contention after missing the 2-0 semi-final victory over Bels last week.

'We are quite lucky. We have got quite a deep squad and at the moment it seems like if we lose one player, we gain two,' said Hamon.

The last time the two Grand Fort Road neighbours met was in the Priaulx a month ago when a brace from Gareth Holden and a Lee Ogier strike secured the visitors a 3-1 win at Northfield.

Hamon will be looking for a similar performance tonight.

'We will be looking to use our game plan. We know what we want to do, what we need to do, but it is all about whether we can put that into action on the night,' he said.

'We went up there and beat them 3-1 in the league, but the next one is a cup game. They will be looking to bounce back from that and, as I said after the semi-final, league form counts for nothing.

'It is not going to be an easy game, but it should be a good game because both sides look to play decent football.'

Morgan concurred with that assessment.

'The ingredients are there. I expect it to be keenly contested as derbies are,' he said.

Hamon is not short of a Stranger Cup winner's medal from his playing days and he will be reminding his troops of the club's outstanding tradition in the competition ahead of this season's final.

'They will be told how we played in the past and that we won it 14 times on the trot and we will say why not start another run now?' said the man who was an integral part of the team which dominated the cup in the 70s and 80s.

'I do not know if anyone will ever be able to match that run.

'The Vale Rec sides of those days were very, very good sides. There are some good players around these days, but you have not got that volume of that calibre of player at one club any more.'

* TRIM MORGAN has had his international clearance come through from Australia to allow him to play locally once more.

He had a run out in a friendly at the weekend and admitted he felt good but spectators might have to wait until next season to see him play competitively again as he wants to get some decent training under his belt.