Saturday see a nearly unchanged Dons side pitted against a strong Wyberton team, in the quarter final of the Fishtoft cup, at Doningtons home ground. After a few early exchanges it was Wyberton who opened the scoring in the 15th minute, some slack defending and watching allowed the Wyberton winger to carry the ball deep into the Dons penalty area, after passing the ball to a team mate he casually rolled the ball into the net by the far post. This spurned Dons on and a couple of good runs down the right by Kyle Graves nearly brought Dons level just the finishing touches were lacking from his crosses.Wyberton still looked dangerous going forward and Jamie hall had to be alert to palm a Wyberton cross come shot out for a corner. Then on 30 minutes the ball was played forward and Wyberton’s goalie came rushing out of his area to handle the ball but unbelievably the referee only showed a yellow card, but from the resulting free kick Kieran Rose struck a un-stoppable free kick high into the back of the net for a deserved equaliser, as both teams fought it out in the midfield battles Liam Pitts the Dons captain was breaking most things up,Wyberton had two more chances before half time as two of their strikers found themselves unmarked and onside in the box but Jamie hall was quick of his line and the lobbed shot landed on the roof of the net, then the Dons keeper had to be alert a few minutes later as a striker broke the offside trap found himself one on one with the young keeper ,but he got his angles spot on as his far post shot was deflected away for a corner by Jamie’s legs.
The second half started and within 15 minutes the game was turned upside down 50th min Wyberton were two one up their striker left unmarked in the box turned and fired a rocket into the net from close range, then ten minutes later it got worse for Dons as a moment of petulance saw Ricky Mason sent off for kicking out at a Wyberton player, this did not seem to deter the Dons and they pushed for a equaliser and it was from this that on 60 minutes Wyberton got their third goal with Dons pushing up Wyberton hit them on the break and as their forward raced through on goal ,the Dons keeper rushing out he slipped the ball underneath the advancing keeper and into a empty net. There was a couple of rash challenges to follow notably one from the ever working Wayne Foster who realistically was lucky to see only yellow for his high tackle, nothing come from the resulting free kick the wall doing its job to get the ball away from danger, then the other tackle at the other end saw Dons awarded a free kick some way out, from this Liam Pitts delivered a peach of a cross into the box for Martin Fox to unleash one of his bullet headers into the far corner of the goal. Dons made two quick substitutions firstly bringing Sam Eyett on for his first game back from a early season injury in place of the hard working Alex Wood, then a few minutes later Andy Stanhope come on for Kieran Rose as the young forward was struggling with a swollen ankle, Kyle Graves picked up a injury too, but with no more subs available decided to stop on and help out as much as he could,75th min after some dogged defending Dons gave away a free kick on the edge of the box, with the Dons keeper shouting for his wall to move, they didn’t and Wybertons fourth goal was despatched directly into the goal from the uncovered angle. In my point of view in the 85th minuet just about summed up the referees display, with a scramble in the Dons penalty area their keeper was laid down full length on the ground to stop a shot, the forward connected with his arm and with something that Tom Daley would have been proud off ,hit the ground in a heap, the referee unbelievably blew for a penalty kick, when the remonstrating had finished, the Wyberton captain dispatched the penalty into the far corner to put Wyberton five two up, Martin Fox was the next Dons player to go into the refs book for a comment he made to his own goalkeeper the referee thought it was meant for him and booked him for the remark, the game finished with Dons still attacking looking for another goal, this was no way a five two game and was a lot closer then the final score showed, in the Dons defence they showed spirit and guts never gave up fought hard and were very very unlucky not to be in the semi final well played and well done Dons.
