Date	Saturday 14 February 2015
Match	Royston Town v Daventry Town
Competition	Evo-Stik League Southern: Division One Central
Result	Won 3-1
Attendance	160
Royston Scorers	Stuart Bridges(2), Watters
MoM	Stuart Bridges

This game was won in the first half as Royston Town responded impressively to their poor outing in the week to rack up a three goal half time lead – that arguably should have been more – but the manner in how they went about their business was light years from their previous showing, positive and pleasing on the eye, on a difficult pitch and with an ultimate finished product of good goals scored.

It has to be said that Daventry Town are not the team we encountered last season but as painfully demonstrated by AFC Hayes no team in this division can be met with complacency and the attitude and performance on show today was more in line with the effort and professionalism needed to meet these individual team by team challenges.

The game sparked as early as the third minute with Chris Watters’ surging run up the left wing being matched with a pin-point left foot cross that saw Stuart Bridges arrive perfectly to head cleanly back across Daventry keeper Ben Heath into the inside of the netting. Robbie Nightingale was enjoying a rare start today and put in an impressive match anchoring the midfield with purpose and intelligence and it was his own strong tackle and interplay with Ryan Ingrey that saw him look up and put in a longish shot that Heath dealt with. On ten minutes some good play by skipper Kaan Fehmi set up Scott Bridges but his effort was thwarted by an off the line header by defender Ricky Hill.

Man of the Match midfielder Stuart Bridges got his second goal on 19 minutes with more good play by Fehmi on the right hand side of the box finding himself on the by-line and with enough time to look up and pass sharply to the arriving Bridges whom despatched a low finish to double the Crows early lead.

Five minutes later and it was three with Watters finding more space up the left wing after good work by Ingrey and the Crows assistant manager put over what I am sure he would call as a planned shot but his deep cross field delivery found Heath stranded and it fell beautifully into the far side top of the goal.

Big Dave Theobald, having a good game in the heart of defence, thought he had notched but his headed effort was ruled out for offside and another offside flag wiped out Fehmi’s netted finish after Ingrey’s initial shot had rebounded to him. Ryan Lockett finished up the half by shooting just wide.

The first 45 minutes had been all Crows with wave after wave of free flowing attacks being constructed with intelligence and guile.

Daventry came out of their half time dressing room with more purpose and Royston took a few minutes to regain their composure. This first five second half minutes was enough to see the visitors get one back as they reacted quicker to a cross field loose ball and substitute David Parkinson took his chance well.

The second half produced less Crows’ chances as Daventry had slightly more of the ball – Ingrey should have added to the score-line on 70 minutes but his snap shot was scooped over. Lockett and Fehmi continued to graft unselfishly and Royston dominated the match again with good midfield endeavour – but couldn’t deliver a second period coup de grace with the first half performance proving enough.

Team: Yates, Bradshaw, Watters, Corlet, Theobald, Bridges Scott, Bridges Stuart, Nightingale (Mentis), Fehmi (Boot), Lockett, Ingrey (Hart).

Subs not used – Wharton, Powell.