THE ENTERTAINERS

There was an explosive start to this cup tie that had the relatively small crowd on the edge of the seats, hardly drawing breath until the half time break, by which time there had been two penalty awards, one missed and one converted, three cautions and seven goals. With five players out, Kings were down to the bare bones and manager Chris Cummins went for a 4-1-4-1 formation, switching Charlie Pattison to right back and bring in Louie Collier for his first start since January.

The game was barely a minute old when an exchange of passes down the left between Kehinde Aileru and Lewis Clark resulted in the latter’s cross being firmly headed home by skipper Jack Hopkins, but home euphoria lasted exactly a minute as Louie Collier delivered a low cross that Kane Farrell reacted to first to beat keeper Steve Phillips. The Phoenix response was slower, three minutes to be precise, as Melvin Minter was tempted into no-man’s land by a ball out to Ben Allen on the right and the young winger conjured up an unlikely goal with an impressive lob of the back-pedalling keeper from an acute angle. The action switched to the other end and Stevie Ward was brought down by a clumsy challenge in the box, bur Phillips guessed correctly to save his penalty and then Hopkins was fortunate to receive only yellow for a ferocious challenge on Kane Farrell. Parity was restored when a Farrell forward ball put Louie Collier one on one with Phillips and his finish across the keeper was coolness personified, before Kings went ahead for the first time when a corner from the ubiquitous Farrell was met by a superb glancing header from Mitchell Weiss. All this and there was only just over a quarter of an hour played!

By those standards, there was a relatively quiet period until five minutes before the break, when Kane Farrell completed a hat-trick of assists with a diagonal forward ball to Weiss, who beat Phillips via a deflection off Clark. The home side refused to be overawed and again brought themselves back into touching distance with a powerfully converted penalty by Harry Harding after Roddy Collins was adjudged to have brought him down in a tussle.

The second half resembled a normal game after that, Callum Adebiyi and Kane Farrell clearing off the line to bail out a defence that still looked vulnerable at times, Mitchell Weiss missing a chance for a hat-trick, but few other incidents until substitute Max Hercules kept the ball in play down the left, slipped it to Kyle Connolly and blasted home the return ball to finally settle an absorbing and entertaining encounter.