Crusaders comfortably progress in FA Cup

Hungerford Town are in the hat for Monday’s 2nd Qualifying Round draw in the Emirates FA Cup after a comfortable afternoon’s work against Petersfield Town.

Hungerford started well and had two chances inside the first six minutes from Jack Stanley set-pieces. The first, a free kick, was picked up by Sean Moore and played back across the box for Slavi Spasov to head wide before Luke Carnell’s header, from a corner, flew narrowly past a post.

An excellent pass by Matt Partridge found Conor McDonagh in-behind and the striker forced Jay Morris into the first save of the afternoon with his legs.

Kieran Alcock had the first opportunity for the visitors when he broke beyond the Hungerford defence and forced Ryan Clarke into a low stop.

Elis Watts cut inside on his powerful left foot and Morris got down well to save before he curling an effort over the bar.

Stanley’s deep cross then found Watts unmarked at the back post but the winger could only shoot straight at the goalkeeper.

The Crusaders finally got their breakthrough on 28 minutes when McDonagh fired a low strike into the bottom corner, the Petersfield defence giving the striker too much time to take the ball down, shift it onto his right foot and get the shot away.

The hosts then doubled their lead, McDonagh with his second of the game, when a threaded through ball found the striker and he slotted the ball past Morris.

Carnell, a threat from set-pieces all afternoon, headed home from a Rhys Tyler corner to give Hungerford a comfortable advantage at the interval.

There was never a comeback on the cards as the Crusaders looked in control with their three-goal advantage.

Clarke did have to stop shots from Ollie Davies and Declan Seiden but the visitors created little in an uneventful second half.

McDonagh did come close to grabbing a hat-trick as his long-range effort only just went past the post.

Ramarni Medford-Smith thought he had his first goal for the club after heading home a Michael Fernandes cross, but it was ruled out for offside.

Matt Partridge added to the score line in the 90th minute, firing home from a throw-in, to make it four-nil.

Hungerford will play in the next round of the FA Cup on Saturday September 16th.

Photo by Jeff Youd