Long Eaton V Holbeach United

Long Eaton United 3-2 Holbeach United

Long Eaton United edged a close encounter against Holbeach today in a thrilling game at Grange Park.

Long Eaton started brightly by creating a number of chances by launching the ball into the box, but to no avail. It was Holbeach however, who took the lead on the quarter hour mark when Aaron Eyett made a darting run at the United defence and he laid the ball on to Stacy Cartwright who’s driven shot into the bottom right corner gave Jamie Hannis in the United goal no chance.

After the goal, Holbeach, did gain more of a foothold in the game and did put more pressure on the United defence, but they had no end product. United then did have an equaliser when a corner was poorly dealt with by Holbeach and Rob McCormick was on hand to slot the ball past, Rick Drury, in the Holbeach net.

United then, took the lead, just before half time when another poorly dealt with corner by Holbeach gave McCormick the chance to flick the ball past Drury on the edge of the six yard box. This gave United, a well-deserved lead going into the half time break.

Holbeach came out for the second half, all fired up and got their equaliser through substitute Jordan Thomas when he snuck in front of Hannis to poke home, to make the second half more tantalising. Holbeach went on to have their best period of the game as they went close but, went narrowly from two attempts, the United defence was at 6s and 7s.

After this bout of pressure though, United turned the tables and on their first counter attack, they took the lead for the third and final time, as the ball was swung in from the left, Shaun Rickford was able to, head in home from four yards.

United did have the lion share of the later chances, and could have gone further ahead, but Holbeach did looked dangerous on the counter. There was one major concern for United, when brace scorer McCormick went down with a head injury and looked really shaken up and had to be taken off but thankfully he remained conscious, so hopefully he’ll be okay.

There was one final chance for United when a shot clattered the bar before Holbeach fired wide.

That was a very enthralling cup tie and its one step closer to Wembley, for United, if they keep up this level of performance and tighten things up defensively then the can push further up the table.