Devonshire Cougars 1

Flanagan’s Onions 2

Flanagan’s Onions had not beaten Devonshire Cougars before this season, yesterday they beat them for the second time in two weeks, knocking them out of the FA Cup in the process.

Goals from Pete Robey and Vincent Minors put Onions into the quarter-finals of this season’s competition, and not even a hotly disputed penalty from Drewonde Bascome could ruin their day.

The penalty was just the second shot on target that Cougars managed in the second half, the other came from a free kick that Dermot O’Sullivan, the substitute goalkeeper, did well to palm clear the danger.

On as a second-half replacement for the injured Stephen Gould, O’Sullivan was less than comfortable in his role, and the home side’s inability to test him fully spoke volumes for the attacking threat they posed.

“We’ve not had a lot of luck at Devonshire Rec so it’s nice to get the win,” Mick Ward, the Onions player/coach, said.

“Someone worked out that we’d never beaten Cougars before, so to beat them two games on the bounce [that is] always good.”

Although the scoreline was closer than their 4-2 league win a fortnight ago the game followed a similar pattern, with Onions pressing and Cougars struggling to deal with the lack of space.

The return of Kijuan Franks at least gave the Cougars defence some solidity, but their failure to defend as a team ultimately cost them and it took just four minutes for Onions to go ahead.

Minors outjumped Dominique Williams in the area and his header fell at the feet of Robey who, having made an unchecked run from outside the area, hammered the ball past Kioshi Trott, the Cougars goalkeeper.

Raymond Beach, Zeko White and Bascome, who rattled the Onions goal with a 25-yard strike, all had chances to get their side back into the game.

As it was, they were punished for their failure to do so when Minors raced onto a defence-splitting pass from Robey and fired a shot past Trott.

The second-half was a similarly tight affair, and the penalty in the 89th minute, when Markez Laws was penalised for handball even though it appeared that Machi Battersbee, the Cougars midfielder, had committed the offence, made for a nervy ending.