JERSEY BULLS captain James Querée said there were “a lot of celebrations” in the changing rooms, along with a fair bit of relief after they rode their luck into the fifth draw of the FA Vase, which is being made today at 1pm.
It took a penalty shoot-out to decide the match in the end, with Ruben Mendes scoring the winning kick, not long after he saved Bulls’ dream of a trip to Wembley with the late equaliser in normal time.
Bulls now have three more rounds to get through before securing a date in the final in North London in May. To do so, they may have to be little more convincing than they were here, though their visitors from Dorset were worthy opponents and matched the hosts every step of the way.
Hamworthy Recreation play in a step below Bulls, the sixth tier of the English national league system, in Division One of the Wessex League, but have won 13 of their 15 league games, drawing the other two. The only match they had lost before their trip to the Channel Islands was a league cup first round match, which was also decided by penalties, meaning they have never been beaten over 90 minutes –and they showed why.
“They are a solid team. You can see why they’re unbeaten in their league,” added Querée. “There wasn’t much between the two teams. It was quite a scrappy game. But we’re happy to pull it back with the goal and then go on to win on penalties.”
Mendes came on as a sub in the 79th minute and his long- range effort with just two minutes of normal time remaining ought to have been easily dealt with, but Hamworthy keeper Matty Frederick inexplicably punched the ball into his own net to hand Bulls a lifeline, which they used to their advantage and were grateful for.
“I’m happy for Ruben. He’s been off for over a year now with his ACL. First game back and he’s took a shot from distance and with a bit a luck it’s gone in. But we’ll take that all day. Happy for him and happy for the boys and through to the next round.”
Hamworthy opened the scoring in the 51st minute from Bulls’ own goalkeeping error when Pierce Roche misjudged a cross and the ball spilled to Chris Long for a straightforward finish. But the teenager made amends and then some in the shoot-out, saving the first penalty taken by Long and catching Hamworthy’s third, which was a feebly attempted chipped effort from their top scorer George Deem.
“He’s a young keeper. He’s got big shoes to fill with Euan [Van Der Vliet] being out, but he’s a talented keeper, and he will learn from that mistake,” Querée continued.
“He’s made some good saves in the penalty shoot out and that’ll give him confidence as we move forward to next week.”
There are now 16 teams left in the competition, including Bulls who have gone as far as they did last season where they were knocked out by then defending champions and repeat finalists Newport Pagnell Town.
“There’s some very good teams that are in competition, but you can only play who’s in front of you,” said the Bulls skipper.
“We’re happy to be moving forward. and whoever we get, we’re going to want to win that game and we know we’re can compete with anyone at this level.”
