You can never really win in games like this. Score a hundred and people will shrug, sigh and go, "...well it was only amateurs." Win by a dozen and people will raise their eyes skywards, tut and go, "...what, against amateurs!"
On Saturday, Hornets kept fans and cynics alike happy with a game in which the halves ran to distinctly different scripts. Hornets progress to the next round began as early as the 4th minute when Dave Watson came onto a neat pass, found some space and scooted in.
This woke Rose Bridge from their slumber and they played some neat football backed by some gritty defence, keeping Hornets at bay until the 18th minute when Danny Wood bagged the first of his pair - one a neat stepping effort leaving a wake of defenders. In between, Dave Stephenson cruised in for his effort, taking a quite exquisite return pass from Tommy Cooper, but taking an age to ground the ball.
Further tries from Owen, Watson and Rogers - each coming three minutes apart - completed the first half scoring and if I had a quid for everytime I heard someone say, "It was only 32 -nil against Runcorn at half time..." I'd have four quid.
The second half started with Scully and Andy Ireland warming the bench - joined by Stevo and Watto later, but despite our frontline taking a breather, Hornets opened the second half with a cracking try - a searching crossfield kick from Coates found Marlon Billy leaping like a...er... gazelle... a salmon..oh, well, he outjumped the Rose Bridge winger to gather and score in spectacular fashion.
Then Hornets declared.
Wes Rogers turned up in the right place at the right time to collect his second after an hour and Chris Newall celebrated his return by bagging another 6 minuters later and...er... that was it, really.
Hornets batted out the 80 - fending off only one serious danger when O'Meara chased down Damien Cleary after he intercepted a quite appalling pass from Martindale, who had a 24 carat stinker - and took the ticket to the next round. Thanks very much.
Rose Bridge grafted hard throughout, but lacked the guile to break down Hornets now stingy defence. So, as good a result as we could have expected, shame about the second half.