Thanks again to Rory Sheehan who will be providing match reports and feature articles
Eastwood 2 Wrexham 0
Wrexham crashed out of the FA Cup at the ridiculously early 4th Qualifying Round stage with this embarrassing replay defeat away to part-time Eastwood Town. Two divisions separate the sides but over two games the Unibond Premier side bridged that gap and then some. Wrexham on the other hand were shameful. The honeymoon period of Dean Saunders is well and truly at an end.
Talk before the game was of 17 year-old striker Obi Anoruo, plucked from the youth-team to make his debut from the start in testing circumstances. However with the confirmation of the starting line-up it was the midfield that was of greatest cause for concern.
The four across the middle of Spann, Mackin, Kearney and Neil Taylor was asking for trouble and showed the Wrexham backroom staff had failed to heed the warning signs of Saturday. Eastwood had strength, muscle and energy all over the park whereas our quartet was decidedly lightweight and ponderous.
A cold night in Nottinghamshire at Eastwood’s Coronation Park was a test of character that this Wrexham side failed. Eastwood got a grip on the game from the beginning and were the better side throughout.
With just over 20 minutes played a spell of intense pressure on the Wrexham goal paid off when an attempt from Holmes hit the bar. Andy Todd was quickest to pounce on the rebound, scrambling home from close-range to put the home side 1-0 up.
As with Saturday’s game there was a real lack of quality on show but what Eastwood did, they did well as Wrexham failed to muster anything going forward. The home side had an advantage and they gave everything to protect it, and that effort and commitment was the difference between the two sides.
With half-time came a Wrexham change, Whalley on for Spann. Really Whalley should have started in place of Spann for a game of this nature. Shortly after, Anoruo was replaced by Proctor. This was a horrible fixture to make your senior debut in to start with, let alone when you receive no service all game and the senior players around you are setting a terrible example. Unfortunately little was learned about young Obi here, and it can only be hoped that the experience hasn’t fazed him.
Still Wrexham failed to match Eastwood’s efforts, get into the penalty, provide service to the front two or show any creativity, guile or strength in midfield. The result of this game was heading only one way and it was sealed with 8 minutes to spare.
Gavin Ward, star-man on Saturday, failed to deal with a shot from Todd which bobbled into the path of Ian Holmes for another tap-in. Central midfielder Christian Smith was immediately introduced in place of left-back Tremarco but the game was well beyond the Dragons now.
The last action of note came when an over-eager Eastwood substitute, Peter Knox, entered the fray with four minutes to go. He was red-carded and dismissed within a minute for a shocking tackle on Wes Baynes, one of Wrexham’s poorer performers on the night and over the two games.
So Wrexham exited a competition they have such a proud history in, without even a whimper, before it even got going this term. These clashed with Eastwood have shown up a lack of ideas and basic hunger to succeed. It’s hard to recall a shot on target over the two games. Credit to Eastwood and their fans, they fully deserve their success and this ‘giant-killing’ will go into their history books.
In mitigation Saunders has lost both Joe Allen and Andy Fleming recently, but it’s a little alarming that he went with the woefully inadequate Kearney / Mackin partnership, one which failed to function on numerous occasions for his predecessor. This, especially in light of Taylor’s troubles in the centre on Saturday.
It’s back to the drawing board with a home game against struggling Lewes on Saturday, possibly the only BSP club to have suffered as much humiliation as Wrexham recently, going out to minnows Leiston in their FA Cup replay…
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