WALSALL WOOD 5
HOLBEACH UTD 0
Seb Hayes bemoaned Holbeach United’s injury crisis as their run in the Buildbase FA Vase ended with a whimper at Walsall Wood on Saturday.
The Tigers crashed 5-0 against lower-graded Wood in the second round clash at the Oak Park Ground, with the goals coming from Tony Clarke (8), Paul Sullivan (pens 10 and 15), Keenan Meakin-Richards (45) and Tony Clarke (58).
Holbeach were without a host of first-teamers, with Mitch Griffiths, George Zuerner, Charley Sanders, Luke Avis, Matt Warfield, Jordan Keeble and Dan Jenkins all unavailable.
That meant Hayes had to rush skipper Nick Jackson and fellow defender Stacy Cartwright back from injury – and the latter picked up another knock that could see him miss the rest of 2017.
Although the Tigers boss knew unavailability would eventually cost his side, he still rued Wood’s two penalties and bemoaned a poor performance.
Hayes said: “I knew that this kind of result was going to come eventually. We’ve got so many injuries and a defeat was inevitable.
“We just had so many players missing – I had to ask for Ryan Oliver to come and play again to make the squad up to 12 senior players.
“It is what it is, I’m afraid. This injury nightmare was always going to catch up with us eventually – I suppose the only saving grace is that it happened in the FA Vase.
“We wanted to go as far as we can and get money into the club, but it’s not a competition we could realistically have hoped to win.
“I can’t blame everything on injuries, though. We didn’t apply ourselves correctly and the performance was poor.
“We were just too nice and we got what we deserved, I’m afraid.
“I can’t lie and say that Walsall Wood are an unbelievable side. They have a very good left winger and two good strikers, but they play a typical UCL style of football.
“We should have been able to deal with them a lot better. But, to their credit, they just didn’t let us get into the game.
“I don’t mind going down with a fight, but sadly we exit the FA Vase with something of a whimper.
“I do think that the performance of the referee wasn’t of the standard I’d expect from an official in a national competition.
“He gave two penalties against us in seven minutes, which killed us. One of them was a clean tackle by Joe Braithwaite and his momentum brought their lad down, while the other was an absolute joke. I’ve seen it back and he was three yards outside of the area.
“To make matters worse, we rushed Stacy Cartwright back from injury and it flared up again – meaning he’ll miss up to five more weeks.”
Holbeach travel to Sleaford Town tonight (Wednesday, 7.45pm) for a ChromaSport UCL Premier Division derby.
Victory would see them climb into the top six once again.
Tigers: Drury, Harker, Cartwright (Davies), Braithwaite, N Jackson, Smith, Dougill, Tinkler, Oliver, Leckie, Bird (Richardson). Not used: Edey, Griffiths.
