By Brian Bennett

Ashington manager Marc Ellison said he was ‘really pleased’ after his side knocked West Auckland out of the FA Trophy following a 3-1 win at Woodhorn Lane on Saturday.

James Hughes fired the County Durham side ahead early in the contest but the Colliers hit back to book their place in the next round with second half goals from Liam Henderson, Benji Shodeinde and Scott Fenwick.

Ellison said: “Overall, I’m really pleased. Obviously, it’s good to get the win, and I’m really happy for the lads who maybe haven’t played as much as they’d have liked so far. I thought there were a lot of positives in terms of how we tried to play as well. It’s still early in the season and things are far from perfect, but some of the things we’ve been working on and the concepts we’re trying to get across definitely poked their heads out this afternoon, which is a real positive. I thought our desire to go and get the ball back as quickly as possible was really good again, and that gave us a better platform to enjoy some decent spells on the ball. So yeah, I think over the course of the game we deserved the win.”

He continued: “I still think we could be a bit more composed in the final third, especially in the first half, but there were some really good moves in the second half and it was good to see some of the things we’ve been working on coming together. On another day, we could probably have had a few more. I thought Jude Cogdon was brilliant as well in his first start for us – I thought he took his opportunity really well and we’ve got real healthy competition now across the pitch.”

Looking ahead to the league clash against Heaton Stannington on Bank Holiday Monday which has a noon kick-off, Ellison said: “The most important thing for us now is that we keep building and finding come consistency in our performances. We’ve got another really tough game on Monday afternoon at Heaton, so hopefully we can get as many of our fans there as possible to make the short trip and get behind the lads.”