Edinburgh side meet their match in shape of West Lothian team

WEST LOTHIAN side Tower prescribed their hosts Newton Heath a heavy dose of "goals against" as the Edinburgh club crashed out of the Foster's Scottish Sunday Amateur Trophy at Duddingston's Cavalry Park.

Heath, who so often this season have administered heavy defeats on any opposition that has come their way, were truly given a taste of their own medicine in a 6-2 home defeat that ended their impressive run in the national tournament.

The progress of the Craigshill side, who reached the semi-final of the Scottish last season, was rarely endangered, but it took them 20 minutes to make the breakthrough.

Heath will view the opener as a poor goal to concede, as half their team were busy urging the referee to award a free-kick for an incident that occurred long before Tower striker Tony Hopkins seized the free ball on the edge of the area and found the bottom right-hand corner of the net with his strike, which beat Dean Walker despite the goalkeeper getting a hand to it.

Tower defender George McGreagor, the essence of calm and effortlessness in the visiting back-line, simply strolled through the game, choosing to add a couple of goals to augment his side's chances in the process.

His first, which doubled Tower's lead shortly before half-time, reflected his nonchalance and apparent flawlessness perfectly – a calmly-struck but supremely-executed curling and dipping free-kick from 25 yards that found its way over Heath's four-man wall and just under Walker's crossbar. Superb technique, followed by an expression of "Did you really expect anything less?" by the goalscorer.

During the half-time break, Heath, experiencing relatively unfamiliar circumstances as they trailed by two goals, appeared unfazed and confident of turning round the deficit.

The Tower side, however, contains many experienced heads and upon resumption, they never looked like letting their two-goal advantage slip – only adding to it. The visitors duly struck a third just two minutes in, as Alan Watt chested the ball on the edge of the penalty box and met the falling ball with a blind, hooked volley towards goal that flew over Walker and high into the net.

On the hour mark, Heath drew some reward for their substantial efforts in what was a closer contest than the result suggests. John Daly's intelligent low pass found striker Kenny Fisher lurking in space, and he advanced before firing a low, angled shot beyond Richard Russell in the Tower goal. Within seconds, though, Tower restored their three-goal lead, Hopkins storming forward from a kick-off only to be needlessly felled by Heath defender Andy Keith.

The natural choice to take the resultant spot-kick was McGreagor, whose composed finish into the bottom left-hand corner doubled his tally for the afternoon and made the score 4-1. Four minutes later, a rampant Tower again exposed a ragged Heath defence to make it five, Christopher Sawers enjoying ample space and time around the penalty spot to strike a low shot into the net after a cross from the left.

McGreagor blotted his otherwise faultless report card to allow Heath to pull a second goal back with 20 minutes to go through James Reilly.

The final act saw visiting substitute Riki Livingstone take centre stage, the forward skipping through a bedraggled home rearguard before rolling the ball into the bottom left-hand corner of the net to seal a 6-2 victory and send Tower into the seventh round.

Newton Heath: Dean Walker, John Daly, Andy Keith, Johnno McManus, Freddy Robertson, Jay Hutchison, Darren Philp, Mark Arthur, James Reilly, Mark Dawson, Kenny Fisher, Nikki Philp, Brian Porterfield, Dean Philp, James McWhinnie.

Tower: Richard Russell, John Gerrard, Freddie Coyle, George McGreagor, Stephen Moxham, Alan Watt, Christopher Sawers, P McLean, Tony Hopkins, Frazer Roy, Gary White, Lee Adams, Robert Robertson, Andy Campbell, Riki Livingstone.