Crows boss looks to guide team to third straight Floodlit Cup win

PAUL ATTFIELD says he was surprised at how easy it was for his team to brush aside Oxhey Jets in Tuesday night’s Floodlit Cup semi-final.

Royston carried their good run of form into the match and comprehensively beat their lacklustre opponents 6-1 – a scoreline the Crows boss says arguably flattered Oxhey.

He will now take his team into their third Floodlit Cup final appearance in three seasons hoping to make it a hat-trick of victories.

However they will surely be tested far more than they were at Garden Walk on Tuesday night, as they will take on rivals Tring Athletic in the final next month.

“They just didn’t turn up,” said Attfield.

“We never looked in any danger and they just turned up and put a load of players behind the ball. It was surprising to see for a semi-final match because I expected it to be a hard game.

“We just had to keep up the tempo throughout the match, which isn’t easy when your opponents don’t want to do anything and 6-1 is probably the minimum we deserved.”

The Crows have been on fine form in recent weeks and look like finishing the season on a high after the disappointment of finally falling out of the promotion race a couple of weeks ago.

They now have a second place league finish and a cup final to look forward to – with Tring being their main obstacle in their search for both.

Attfield says he is happy the team has something to fight for as the season draws to a close after admitting he doubted the motivation of some of the players earlier this month.

“Four or five weeks ago the season looked like it was just going to fade into nothing but now we’ve got something to fight for,” added Attfield.

“We’ve always been a good cup side, apart from at the beginning of this season. We did well in the cups when we were in Division One, we did well in the FA Vase last season so we’ve got good cup pedigree.

“Now we’ve got the majority of the squad together we’re now seeing what we’re capable of as we’re winning games and scoring goals.

“We’ve just got to keep doing what we’re doing. We’ve got to play two mid-table teams (Hadley and Haringey Borough) who have got nothing to play for. We might not even have to win both games as Colney Heath have to play Tring on the last day.

Attfield also hopes a good end to the season will act as a springboard for the team to go onto bigger and better things next season after a long and often inconsistent 2010/11 campaign.

“Hopefully we can go through next season without having the same problems we’ve had this year and show what the whole squad is capable of.”