Guernsey's men beat Crawley to book home cup tie

The damage was done within the opening half-an-hour as the Island side scored all their goals in the first half to leave coach Andy Good a contented man.

‘We had good control of the game, played really well, took our chances and took the game away from them – it was a great team performance, particularly in that first half,’ he said. ‘We kept the ball nicely and picked our moments when to attack.’

The first goal came early on and was eventually credited to Ant Stokes, despite Josh Kendal also laying claim to it in a busy goal-mouth.

Guernsey doubled their lead thanks to a Sean Donaldson penalty stroke, won by the same player who had been about to tap in from close range at the culmination of a good move when he had his stick struck away by an opponent.

Donaldson, on his competitive Island debut, having featured in the Nomad match over Christmas, doubled his personal tally five minutes later with a short-corner drag flick that deflected off a Crawley player on its way into the net.

The scoring was complete five minutes before half-time as a breakaway was finished off in style by Zak Damarell, who found the bottom corner with a trademark reverse-stick strike.

‘Bearing in mind we had been 3-1 up against the Students at half-time [in the Nomads game] and lost, the message at half-time was to manage the game,’ Good said.

‘As it turned out, the second half was largely a carbon copy of the first but without the goals as we had lots of possession and created more opportunities.

‘Their goalkeeper made a brilliant double save from Cam Rivers-Moore and Sean hit the inside of a post but the ball came out, so he could have had a hat-trick on debut.

‘The keeper also made an excellent save from a Matt Stokes drag-flick, so it finished as four but could have easily been six or seven.’

While Good praised his whole squad for their performance, a couple of the younger players impressed him in particular.

‘Credit to Cam Rivers-Moore because as a 16-year-old this was probably the highest level of game he would have played so far and he had a good impact on the game and he could, perhaps should, have scored.

‘Tom Cashin also had a really fine game in midfield while the usual suspects like Stokes and Damarell were good, too, and obviously Sean with his two goals,’ added the coach, who admitted that the defeat in the Nomads game had taught his side some valuable lessons before facing Crawley.

‘It gave us an idea of what we needed to do better.

‘There were a few personnel changes, but it was largely the same team and we had spent time going into the things we wanted to do, mainly in attack, that we did not do against the Students, did some work on it and we were much, much better.’

Guernsey now await the winners of the tie between Old Merchant Taylors and the University of East Anglia, which is being played this coming weekend, and Good hopes his side can put a good run together.

‘In this competition you just don’t know what you’re going to get, it’s a complete lottery.

‘Last year we lost to Oxted Seconds, who were really strong. Crawley are in the same league this year as both Oxted Seconds and Thirds, but the Thirds are at the top of the league and the Seconds at the bottom.

‘Oxted are a National League club, so that tells me all their up-and-coming youngsters are likely playing Thirds whereas their Seconds are probably older guys at the other end of their careers.

‘But Oxted Seconds got knocked out of this competition by Reigate 7-2, so it is hard to know just what you will be up against.’