Rossington Main exited the Sheffield & Hallamshire Senior Cup at the semi-final stage once again with Worksop Town coming out on top on a rainy evening at the Windsor Foodservice Stadium.

Following an early few chances in which Rosso should have taken the lead, The Tigers made Main pay with Chae Whitman-Brown scoring a brace inside the first-half.

Despite ten minutes into the second half Vaughan Redford extended Worksop’s lead to three, George Noble restored Rossington hope by scoring his third senior goal for the first-team with just under 30 minutes remaining.

With Rossington pushing to narrow the deficit further, The Tigers pounced up the other end with Aleksandrs Starcenko and Luke Hall scoring Worksop’s fourth and fifth which confirmed the host’s place in the County Cup final for the third straight year.

Three leagues and 69 places separated Worksop Town of the National League North and Rossington Main of the Northern Counties East League Premier and despite this, it was Rosso who came out of the blocks looking likely to score first.

Inside the opening minutes, Oliver Nowak was inches away from finding the inside of post before a crafty flick from Ross Hannah played Myron Gibbons clean through on-goal only for The Tigers’ shot-stopper Lewis Forshaw to make a first-class one-on-one save.

Rossington then came even closer when Mateo Dumitrescu’s header at the back post was swiftly cleared off the line by the Worksop backline.

Unfortunately for Rosso, The Tigers went up the other end and opened the scoring on the 15 minute as Whitman-Brown cut inside and fired the ball into the top left hand corner.

Five minutes before the referee’s whistle went for half-time, Whitman-Brown doubled his tally for the evening, this time with a low-driven strike across goal which finished in the bottom right hand corner.

After the break, a longball over the top allowed Redford to comfortably dispatch The Tigers’ third goal of the evening in front of the Worksop fans behind the goal.

Summer development graduate Noble gave Rossington a glimmer of hope on 62 minute after an initial chipped ball found it’s way back to him following Forshaw saving Paul Sheburn’s near post shot. Noble took no time to put his laces through it and find the left side of The Tigers’ net.

With Rosso just about hanging onto the two-goal deficit, the ball dropped to Starcenko inside the heart of the Rossington box in which The Tigers’ attacker took one touch before dispatching it into the roof of the goal.

The host’s fourth wasn’t to be the final strike as despite the damage by that point already being done, eight minutes from time, Hall dribbled his way through the middle to slot in the finishing touch for the competition’s x15 record holders.

Rossington almost found a breakthrough right at the death when Cody Prior’s chipped through ball almost found Mantle in-behind however, the Senior Cup holders confirmed their advancement into the final to face Worsbrough Bridge Athletic of the NCEL Division One.

Rosso XI: Wallace (GK), Sherburn, Dolman (46’ Limber), Dumitrescu, Hough (C), Nowak (46’ Arbouin, Prior, Gibbons, Hannah, Mantle, Noble.

Unused Substitutes: Young.

Worksop Town XI: Forshaw (GK), Redford, Starcenko (89’ Atherton), O’Malley, Whitman-Brown, Wedgbury, Rollins (76’ Greaves), Tarima, Sanders, Waterfall (C).

Unused Substitutes: Gooda, Whitham, Chadwick.

Article by Jack Ciullo
Image by Graham Pool at Worksop Town