Table-topping Team Derby Win 6-0
Team Derby Men’s Football 1sts have gone five points clear at the top of the league after a smashing 6-0 victory against closest rivals University of Worcester 1sts.
It took half an hour for the home side to break the deadlock but after that it was smooth sailing, with three goals coming in each half.
After a relatively quiet opening period – excluding a Callum Jenkins free kick which hit the crossbar – Derby took the lead in the match with the first piece of really incisive attacking play. Lamin Sanyang whipped in a cross from the left side and Maciej Dabrowski got there before the onrushing keeper to flick it on into the path of the onrushing Sam Burke to slot home.
This breakthrough really set the wheels in motion for Derby, and just two minutes later the lead had been doubled. Sanyang got the better of his defender once again and after he was upended in the box, captain Jenkins stepped up to cooly slot home the spot kick.
There was time for one more before half-time; Jenkins played a well-weighted through-ball down the line for full-back Yuyu Kabanju, and his cross was finished off by Elijah Fatubarin.
The second-half started similarly to the first, with very little goalmouth action but with the home side dominating possession.
In the 68th minute Derby had their well deserved fourth goal, as not for the first time Worcester’s keeper came too far off his line to clear, and Burke was able to nip in and finish into the open net for his second of the match.
The goal of the game just four minutes later, as David Owolol cut inside from the left, shimmied past two challenges, and finished into the bottom corner for an excellent individual goal.
Jack Nason had had a quiet night in net for Derby but was reliable on the rare occasion when he was called upon, doing well to turn away a Worcester set piece with ten minutes left to play.
Maciej Dabrowski rounded off the win with the sixth goal just a minute from time, putting the icing on the cake in what was an excellent all-round performance.
Manager John McGrath was unsurprisingly delighted with the performance.
He said: “Obviously it’s great to win a game of football, and to win it in the manner we did today. I thought six goals was great but the hard work from the boys was phenomenal, from the very first minute.
“I’ve said it to them all the time that that’s what will separate the good from the bad is how hard you work. I know the boys have got talent, so the fruits of their labour today was the 6-0 win.”
BY HANNAH ROBERTS
