Robin Hood 0

Somerset Trojans 3

A new Friendship Trophy champion will be crowned this season after holders Robin Hood were bundled out of the competition by Somerset Trojans at Devonshire Recreation Club last night.

Dion Stovell led Trojans’s charge with a brace, and Leo Burgess came off the bench to notch the visitor’s third.

Burgess’ goal killed the game off, and gave Trojans some small measure of revenge for their 4-1 league defeat against the same opponents five days earlier.

Robin Hood made nine changes to the team that hammered Trojans at the weekend, with Kyle Lightbourne, the coach, experimenting with several new faces in the line-up.

A Trojans side already out for revenge took full advantage of Hood’s inexperienced squad.

The gulf between the teams was as wide as the distance Trojans travelled to the ground, and once Stovell opened his team’s account it was never a matter of if they would win, but by how much.

After circling Hood’s goal on a few promising raids, Stovell made the breakthrough when he turned sharply inside the box and slotted home after 39 minutes.

Trevin Ming, the Trojans captain, went close to doubling his team’s lead when he headed Calin Maybury’s corner against the crossbar.

Hood, however, would not be so lucky moments later when Stovell scored from close range, after being given far too much time and space in the area.

With Trojans firing on all cylinders, and Hood struggling to find any sort of rhythm, a blowout seemed on the cards.

However, Trojans took their foot off the gas as the game started to resemble a training ground exercise.

Burgess provided the only real excitement in the second half, at least for Trojans fans, with a clinical finish at the back post, finishing off some good approach work and putting the game well beyond Hood’s reach,

Dwayne Adams, the Trojans’ veteran goalkeeper, perhaps never had it so easy between the uprights.

The former North Village and Bermuda international was only called upon twice to deal with genuine threats, rushing off his line to gather the ball as Larri Simons, on as a substitute, moved in for the kill.

Hood’s best chance fell to Mackih McGowan, the lone striker, who failed to get his head to a cross that flew across the face of the goal.

McGowan’s spurned opportunity perhaps best summed up his team’s approach.