“We showed some good battling qualities”

After watching his youthful team beat an experienced Sunderland RCA side in the Northern League Cup, Marc Nash highlighted the contribution of striker Liam Brooks. “I thought we showed some good battling qualities to get through the tie against a strong RCA side. We didn’t get our passing game going in truth but we had that bit of individual class to give us the two goal lead. Liam Brooks is again reminding everyone just what potential he has with a fantastic goal and assist for Tom. They were sucker punches and sometimes you need that if your normal game isn’t quite there. We asked the players at half time to try and play out a bit more as we felt they wouldn’t cope with that type of play but the playing surface is fast becoming an issue again so they are less confident. We conceded a poor goal but I felt we recovered quite well and had our best spell but couldn’t kill the game off. Brooks was outstanding but was struggling with tight calfs at half time but he managed to play 70 mins or so then we started to absorb some late pressure but we showed faith in the youngsters to see the game out. Connor Campbell had a fine debut and we’ve finished with a number of U20’s on the pitch. That allowed us to rest some players for Saturday. I wanted to progress in all competitions and we were 5 seconds from doing so but we move forward in two of them so it keeps us ticking nicely.”