FA TROPHY PRELIMINARY ROUND

Northwood 2

AFC Hayes 3

AFC Hayes boss Ian Crane praised his side’s iron will after they came from behind to knock Northwood out of the FA Trophy at Chestnut Avenue, writes Zhen-Kuang Goh .

The win was the Brook’s second consecutive away derby win after a battling league victory over Tony Choules’ Uxbridge last time out.

Hayes found themselves 2-1 down shortly after the restart and Crane was delighted to see his determined Hayes boys turn the tide in the second-half.

“To come out after the break and in the first two minutes not be aware and concede was a kick in the teeth,” he said.

“But the boys showed great spirit and great determination to come back from 2-1 and it was a deserved victory.”

Hayes took an early lead through Lawrie Shennan on 14 minutes but were quickly pegged back when the hosts’ Niko Muir slid the ball past Ben Goode in the Brook goal.

And Hayes found themselves a goal down just seconds after the interval

Northwood won a throw in on the right and Dave Lawrence curled the ball past Goode from just inside the penalty area.

But the Woods shot themselves in the foot 20 minutes into the second half.

Having won a free kick in an advanced position on the left hand side, they attempted to play a short one-two which failed, allowing Hayes to break quickly with few Northwood players left in their own half.

Jordan Lawal was the recipient of a perfectly weighted ball from the counter-attack and easily finished past a helpless Jake Knight.

And Jake Cass finished with aplomb from a corner kick from the left-hand side when the ball dropped to him and he struck a sweet volley into the top right corner of the net with 14 minutes remaining to hand Hayes a lead they would not relinquish.

Northwood player-manager Mark Burgess was disappointed at the way his side conceded the equaliser, saying that disrupted his team’s game.

“We threw that away. It’s completely our fault, we were in control and doing quite well then we got the free kick outside the box and decided to try something we’d never done before.

“It broke down and unfortunately we got punished for it. That changed the game. I thought we deserved to be ahead when we were, but unfortunately that free kick killed us.”

AFC Hayes’ fixture tomorrow (Tuesday) has been  postponed as their scheduled league opponents Chalfont St Peter were in FA Trophy replay action while Northwood were set to take on Chertsey.

Elsewhere, Uxbridge crashed out of the FA Trophy at the preliminary round stage following their 2-1 defeat to Heybridge Swifts on Saturday.