Our place in the FA Cup Fourth Round Qualifying is firmly secured after a dominating display on Tuesday night versus Winchester City at the Bob Lucas Stadium.
The result was a comfortable 3-0 win, which saw goals from Keelan O’Connell, Ezio Touray, followed by Brooklyn Genesini in the final few minutes.
This round appeared to be a tale of two matches; if Winchester were the stronger side last weekend, this replay saw us in the driving seat from start to finish.
Ezio, in particular, was a handful for the helpless Winchester defence, scoring one and being involved in several chances throughout the game.
His heroics, along with the rest of our players, have ensured that we will be travelling to Nailsworth for our nail-biting clash versus Forest Green Rovers next Saturday.
Though the stats suggest we couldn’t have drawn a more tricky opponent, a performance like Tuesday night’s thrashing would be enough to beat any team.
After our subs changed the trajectory of last weekend’s cup tie, they were all thrown into the starting line-up this time round, those being Brooklyn, Ezio, Keelan and Harry Jones.
Our gaffer’s switches worked from the get-go, Ezio coming within inches of scoring twice within the first five minutes.
His first chance came after cutting inside and firing just wide, before Jordan Maguire-Drew’s corner met his head, before the ball narrowly missed the target.
Our next big opportunity was created by Brooklyn just before the 20-minute mark, when he struck into the side netting.
By this point the visitors had done little to threaten Will Buse’s goal, their only chances being a Josh McCormick free-kick which hit the wall, before Dan Jones skied over the bar.
They did, though, come a little closer by end of the game’s first quarter, when Tommy Wright hit the post after beating a couple of our defenders.
So, despite our dominant display so far, we found ourselves a post away from being a goal down.
That was until Keelan ran through on goal approx. 10 minutes before halftime.
The wizard winger was put through on goal as he ran toward the box and slotted past Luke Cairney to give us a deserved 1-0 lead.
With us now a goal ahead, we wouldn’t stop there.
Jordan, once again the centre of our key chances, played a first-time ball to Harry, who sent the ball just past the post.
As the half then drew to a close, our players headed down the tunnel comfortably the better side so far.
It didn’t take us long to get going in the second half, either, Cairney pushing Charlie Rowan’s strike over the bar seven minutes in.
Our defender was again influential 12 minutes later, this time at the other end of the pitch when he prevented Wright from running further forward with the ball.
His challenge allowed us to quickly break, with Ezio finishing off the counter-attack to make it 2-0 with just over 25 minutes remaining.
With us two goals ahead in the second half, the visitors now had an even bigger mountain to climb.
Their fortunes didn’t improve with our rock-solid defence limiting them to minimal chances, as shown with a tame long-range shot from Wright just after 70 minutes.
In fact, by this point Will hadn’t even made a save, his first finally coming with approx. 15 minutes remaining.
Meanwhile our Terras showed no signs of slowing down; Ezio headed down towards Cairney inside the box, albeit unable to grab a second.
Unsurprisingly, our consistent chance-creating resulted in a third goal two minutes before stoppage time, when Brooklyn placed a tidy finish past Cairney to send us into the next round of the FA Cup once and for all.
Our tricky trip to the New Lawn Stadium takes place next weekend; before our fourth-round fixtures lies another away day, this time against Enfield Town this Saturday [15.00 BST].
