Moors Academy side continued their encouraging start to the new Northern Division One season with an eye-catching 6-1 win at Burnley on Wednesday afternoon.
Having ran out 4-2 winners over Wath Academy at The Brewery Field in their opening fixture of the campaign last week, Matty Dolan’s youngsters set off for Lancashire in high spirits.
Their confidence shone through in the opening stages of the game too and they took the lead with just 8 minutes gone when Leighton Hope saw his first effort on goal well saved before lobbing the rebound over the helpless home keeper for 1-0.
Moors continued to dominance the encounter as it developed, with Adam Yates enjoying plenty of possession in his new role in the centre of the back three and linking up well with the dangerous Archie Dodds.
The pressure told just after the half-hour when Moors made it 2-0. Dodds picked the ball up from Yates and danced past a number of Burnley challenges before spotting the keeper off his line and executing a wonderful, lobbed finish from 40 yards.
It was a touch of class which rocked the hosts firmly on to the back foot and Moors kept pushing forward, grabbing a third goal just before half time when Hayden Oakes whipped a brilliant strike into the top corner from the edge of the box.
The second half continued in the same pattern. Ethan Docherty – fresh from his hat-trick in last week’s win – finally got his name on the scoresheet as he burst through the home defence before being upended in the box. He picked himself up to confidently convert from the resultant penalty and make it 4-0.
Ollie Griffiths then grabbed his second goal of the season on the hour when he was in the right place on the edge of the penalty area to stroke home an excellent finish after the ball fell kindly into his path.
Moors made it 6-0 on 80 minutes as Oakes grabbed his second goal of the afternoon with a sublime curling effort right into the to corner to cap a superb team performance.
The Clarets did manage to grab a consolation goal near the end but it did little to stop the celebrations in the Moors camp as they collected a second straight win at the start of the new season.
“I am so pleased with the way lads went about that today,” said coach Dolan afterwards.
“I knew we had things to work on despite the win last week and it was fantastic to see some of those improvements evident in this afternoon’s victory.
“We’ve got a group here who are eager to listen and determined to develop as players and as a team, so they just have to keep working hard and maintain those standards now.
“As good as start as this is, it is only a start. We need to keep on going and if we can hit that level every week then we’ll definitely win more games than we’ll lose.”
Full Time: Burnley 1 Moors 6
Moors: Smith, Robertson (Lynch 50), Blair (Jones 50), Yates (K Dodds 60), Stapleton, Neely, Oakes, A Dodds (Beattie 70), Docherty, Griffiths, Hope.
