By Brian Bennett | Photo: MJT Photos (Shildon AFC)
Ashington FC striker Wilson Kneeshaw grabbed a brace as his side fought back from a 1-0 deficit before they secured a 4-2 win over Shildon in Saturday’s Emirates FA Cup tie in County Durham.
And afterwards Kneeshaw stressed that the Colliers have got to look to continue in the same vein on Saturday when they travel for Saturday’s Northern Premier League East Division curtain raiser against Ossett Town in West Yorkshire: “Now it’s about us backing this result up,” said the 30 year old, “We will have a good week of training then really look to kick on and start our league programme like we have done in the cup today.”
Looking back at the Shildon encounter, Kneeshaw said: “It was a hard fought game. We played some good football in the first half but went in 1-0 down and it was a case of how we would react. It’s a completely different team this season but we’ve got some bigger characters and more experienced heads in the squad so to be fair I thought we proved a lot to ourselves which is good. Not everything is going to be easy in the season but we know that we have got the resilience to come back.”
Of his two goals, Kneeshaw said: “For the first, as soon as the ball dropped in between, I knew I was going to get there first because pace is basically my main strength. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the ‘keeper coming and I knew if I took a big enough touch then there was no way he was going to recover. For the second, to be fair the defender cut off the angle quite well because I was looking to cut back onto my right foot and then open up the goal. However the lad got a really good angle so I had to do a little shimmy which paused him for a little bit. Then as soon as I knew that the ‘keeper was going to commit, it was a case of getting enough height on the ball to dink it over him.”
The Darlington-born striker could so easily have started the campaign with a hat-trick – but was nevertheless happy with the two he bagged: “I had three one on ones including one where I hit my shot straight at the ‘keeper instead of going across him – but obviously it was our first game and it was a case of getting up to speed. It would have been lovely to score a hat trick but the main thing was that we started off with a win.”