Ross Juniors senior side bowed out of the HFA Junior Cup on Saturday when they lost 3 – 2 away at Weobley. Ultimately, a poor start to the game cost Juniors. Although they mustered up a stirring second half come back, they could not get the final goal to take the game into extra time.

Ross had several key players missing this week through holiday and injury, however manager Dan Morris called upon Paul Burnham and Carl Stevens to step into the side, as the only changes to the starting 11 from last week. The first 10 minutes of the match was a disaster for Ross and easily their worst of the season so far. They started sloppy, giving the ball away and it came as no surprise when the home side took the lead after only seven minutes. Three minutes later they doubled their lead. Ross, to their credit, did not fold and their play started to improve. A lot of the good work was around the centre midfield pair of Jon Tookey and Steve Kittner who were keeping Ross in the game, both having exceptional games, Kittner with some solid tackling and Tookey running at the home defence. Ross got a foot hold in the game after 25 minutes when a corner was not properly cleared, the ball fell to Aidan Cook, in the box, who lashed the ball home with an excellent finish. Just as Ross started to think they were back in the game, more poor defending allowed the home side to score again to have a two goal cushion at half time, the score 3 – 1 to Weobley.

There were some strong words exchanged at half time, which seemed to motivate Ross into playing much better football. Defensively Ross seemed much stronger with Husbands and Parker excelling in the second half and did not give the strikers a sniff of goal. Roberts and Dave Tookey were linking up really well down the left hand side and were whipping in some dangerous balls into the box. Ross were also getting the ball into Stevens feet up front and giving him a sight of goal which he lacked in the first half. Jack Bray came on for Shaun Aston after 15 minutes and looked dangerous from his first touch.

Ross scored after 60 minutes. This time it was Cook from fully 35 yards he struck the ball beautifully into the bottom corner. It seemed only the matter of time before Ross would score but the luck was not with them, in particularl Stevens, who had an outstanding second half, when he hit the post twice within the space of 30 seconds. Then with the last kick of the game Husbands could not keep his header down from a corner. Although Ross lost the game 3 – 2 they can hold their heads high with their second half performance. The Mighty 8 Sports Bar man of the match was Jon Tookey.

This week Ross Juniors are at home down the sports centre to Ewyas Harold, kick off 2.30pm.