Daisy Hill booked their place in the final of the Bolton Hospital Cup with a 2-0 win over Bolton County in Tuesday night’s semi-final at Atherton LR’s Crilly Park.
Two well taken goals from Liam Sheppard guided Daisy through to victory over their Manchester League opponents and to their first appearance in the final since 2022.
The game burst into life right from the start with both sides creating chances in the opening couple of minutes.
Straight from the kick off, Bolton County’s Mal Shareen raced through a gap on the left flank and fired in a shot that flew across the face of the Daisy goal, and then at the other end, Sheppard finished off a run down the right with a shot that missed the target from the edge of the box.
On 16 minutes County had another effort on goal when Azz Hargreaves attempted to send a long range lob over the head of Daisy keeper Morgan Newns, but the ball went harmlessly wide.
The pace of Sheppard began to increasingly cause the County defence problems, and after he grazed the cross bar with a shot, he opened the scoring just after the half hour.
The architect was Daisy captain Jake O’Brien, who lofted a long ball over the top of the County defence that Sheppard collected with a good first touch before smashing a shot high into the net past County keeper Charlie Helsby.
In the second half Daisy began to dominate possession for longer spells, and came close to adding a second goal at the midway point of the half, when first a Kaiden Barlow shot on the turn rebounded of the post, and Ben Unsworth following up was denied by a fine save from Helsby, who dived full length to push the ball away to safety.
Another chance fell to Jacob Ridings eight minutes later, when he fired wide after a Sheppard shot had been blocked, but Daisy finally doubled their advantage with eight minutes remaining.
A neat pass down the inside left channel from Luke Nicholls set Sheppard free, and he outpaced the covering defender before curling a shot across the keeper and into the far corner of the net to seal victory.
Daisy now round off their season with two local cup finals, starting with the final of the Atherton Charity Cup on Friday evening, when they face Hindsford at Atherton Collieries’ Dreams2Reality Stadium, kick off 7.30 pm.
The final of the Bolton Hospital Cup will take place on Friday 16th May at the Neuven Stadium in Radcliffe.
