Newcastle Town could not have picked a better game to put in, what has been declared by people at the club, their best performance of the season as Newcastle defeated 2nd placed Prescot Cables 3-0 to move up to 12th spot in the Northern Premier League West.
Newcastle should have been 1-0 up after just four minutes of play when Jake Avery was able to burst beyond the Prescot defence to go one on one with Mitch Allen. However, the forward, who had all the time in the world to score, saw his shot blocked by the Prescot shot stopper.
They did break the deadlock on 24 minutes thanks to a smashing goal from Tom Jones. The goal all stemmed from a Prescot corner which Joe Slinn was able to collect. The former Port Vale youngster launched the ball forward to Jones who ran at the Prescot defence from the halfway line before unleashing a bullet of a strike into the top right hand corner of the goal.
At the other end of the pitch, Prescot offered little going forward with their best chance of the opening half came in stoppage time as Kyle Sambor got a header in, but it was the drop wide of Slinn’s right hand post.
After the break, Newcastle shifted up another gear as they took complete control of the match and, they doubled their lead just two minutes after the restart when after Avery saw his shot blocked the ball fell to Jake Twyford who curled the ball around the defender to score his first goal in Newcastle colours.
Despite the two goal cushion, Newcastle wanted more goals and, Jack Sherratt went close just before the hour mark when he put a half volley just over the crossbar.
That third goal did arrive just after the hour mark as Avery was once again put through on goal and, this time he made no mistake in firing past the Prescot goalkeeper. It was surely game set and match from a Newcastle perspective and, it was now a case of seeing out the closing 30 minutes.
They did that superbly with Slinn making two fine saves including one where he stopped Nathan Koehler’s header on the goal line with many people inside the Red Industries Stadium thinking that the substitute’s effort had gone in. While Ollie Ritchie was able to dangle a leg out to deflect Sambor’s effort over the crossbar.
There was time for one more sighting of the Prescot goal as the game headed towards its conclusion. A long ball forward saw Allen deciding to come out for a wander out of his goal. However, he was beat to the ball by Avery. The former Leek Town man tried to cut inside and get a shot away but, ultimately, he took a fraction of a second too long and a recovering defender was able to nick the ball off him and clear it.
In the end, it was a marvellous result for Neil Bakers’ men as to a man they outplayed their visitors from Merseyside especially after going 1-0 up. If they can perform like this every week between now and the end of the season, then who knows where they could finish in the league table.
