FALMOUTH Town Reserves returned after a five-week layoff due to various postponements and weekends without a match to convincingly beat Altarnun 9 – 0 in the last thirty-two of the Tracey Banfield Cup, writes Jon Perrow. 

Altarnun, who are based just outside of Launceston, put up a great fight in the first 20 minutes or so but from there on in it was one-way traffic with Oli Pickup opening up the scoring on the 20-minute mark with his accustomed neat finish.

The lead was doubled on minute 22 with Charlie Edney scoring with a really crisp finish from a great through ball from Kian Thomas. This was repeated again in the 27 minute with Thomas and Edney linking up again for Edney to smoothly finish for his second goal of the match.

Straight from the resulting kick-off, Town won the ball back and this time Edney went on a great run setting up 16-year-old James Henwood to score his first goal of the game with a crisp left-foot shot from just outside of the area.

In the 31st minute it got even better as, from a great chip over the top of the defence from Birthday boy Oli Pickup, Kian Thomas coolly rounded the goalie for his well-deserved goal resulting in Town going in at halftime, 5- 0 to the good.

The second 45 started with Jak Davies coming on for his first game in a long while due to a head injury and his speed and power were a constant threat to Altarnun in the second half.

Into the 54th minute and from a great cutback from new signing and Man of the Match Finn Robinson, Edney duly completed his superb hat trick.

By now, Town were rampant and in the 56th minute, Henwood scored his second and probably the best goal of the game with a 30-yard ripper into the top corner making the score line 7-0 to Town.

Although all the plaudits were going to the front players, Town's defence of Scott Yendle, Andy Miles, Byron Wood and young William Perrow were rock solid but even then they were indebted to a wonderful flying fingertip save from Zach Telling in goal in the 59th minute to keep the desired clean sheet.

With still 30 minutes to go, Town were playing some wonderful football with pace, power, and movement off the ball, and in the 64th minute, Jak Davies superbly left his man for dead and curled a wonderful shot from all of 30 yards which unfortunately came back off the post straight back into the goalie's arms.

Not to be undone, defender Yendle came up from a corner and scored with a neat volley in the 79th minute and even then the scoring was not over, with Pickup getting his second in the 86th minute after some great link-up play involving most of the team. The match finished with a resounding 9-0 victory and into the last 16 where they will play Callington Reserves this Saturday with a 2.00pm Kick off.

Manager Jon Perrow said: “After five weeks without a match, the lads have been working incredibly hard in training and have not taken their foot off the gas once, which is easy to do and is an absolute credit to the boys.

"Today, all the forwards scored, we kept a clean sheet, everyone had a good run out and we have Jak Davies back from injury. So a great day all around. Altarnun to their credit never gave up but we know we have stronger tests coming up in the next six weeks or so and if we are still in the mix, then who knows where it will take us."