Yaku hat-trick seals final place (08.04.03)

A SERIOUSLY depleted Windsor & Eton side had no answer to Lawrence Yaku’s blistering pace on Tuesday night, as they were routed at Stag Meadow in the semi-final of the Berks & Bucks Cup.
The final 5-0 scoreline was a repeat of Burnham’s humbling at Buckingham Road on Monday, setting up an interesting final with Aylesbury United in three weeks’ time.
However, despite the one-sided result, this was not all one-way traffic, as the Royalists refused to lie down and continued to chase a consolation goal right up to the final whistle.
To all intents and purposes, United secured victory in the first five minutes of this encounter, when Paul Kelly’s deflected free-kick and Yaku’s rifled shot gave them a very early 2-0 lead.
Worryingly, the Magpies did their usual trick of sitting back and hitting on the counter-attack after this.
Fortunately, unlike United’s Premier opponents, the Royalists did not have the pace, the nouse or the firepower to cause United’s well organised back-line any serious problems.
As a result, their were few chances at either end for the next half-hour, until, with half-time looming, Kelly fired just wide of the right-hand post, followed a minute later by Lee Channell blasting just wide of the opposite upright.
United began the second half as they had the first, with Yaku skinning the defence for pace and lobbing United into a 3-0 lead in just the fourth minute of play.
A mix-up at the back almost gifted Windsor a life-line a minute later, when an unidentified defender sent a looping header just over his own bar.
But normal service was soon resumed, when Adam Durrant dinked a delicate chip over the Windsor defence.
Yaku gave chase, only for his final touch to let him down, as the ball dropped onto the roof of the net with the keeper beaten.
With the result beyond any real doubt, the Royalists finally began to make head-way, forcing a series of corners; all taken by experienced play-maker Dave Carroll.
From the first set piece, substitute Matt Glynn appeared to have cleared the danger, but only as far as Julian Renner-Thomas, whose driven shot needed turning off the line by the unusually subdued Andy Morley.
Carroll delivered the resulting corner into the danger area again, where Glynn again headed clear but not far enough, as the ball was knocked back into the six-yard box, where Kieran Adams rose to nod the ball over Barnard.
Having been a spectator for most of the night, the keeper threw himself backwards, turning the ball inches over the bar to preserve his clean sheet.
And then came heart-break for Windsor, as play broke to the other end, Channell knocked the ball down to Yaku, who sprinted in on goal and steered his shot past the stranded keeper into the bottom corner.
Morley had a chance to make to 5-0 a few minutes later, but was left in an embarrassing heap in the box after missing the ball with the goal at his mercy.
However, Yaku’s replacement Adrian Allen soon made amends for Morley’s miss, when he turned three defenders and smashed the ball across goal and into the bottom right-hand corner.
With normal time over, Barnard made things difficult for himself, when he came to collect the ball on the edge of his box and inadvertently handballed.
Carroll came forward to take the free-kick but complained too vociferously about United’s wall and found himself in the rather officious referee’s notebook, bringing a game played in good spirits to a slightly tasteless end.

Windsor & Eton: Bunting, McVey, Murphy, Rosier, Renner-Thomas, Dyke, Walsh, Adams, O’Connor, Carroll, Jones. Subs: Saunders, James (for McVey, 56), Mountain (for Murphy, 28), Greene.
Maidenhead United: Barnard, Morley, Connor, Cook, Durrant, Coppard, Webster, Yaku, Channell, Kelly, Ulasi. Subs: Allen (for Yaku, 73), Jeffrey (for Coppard, 45), Glynn (for Kelly, 55), Boyce, Elsegood.