Sunday February 7, 2010
Radcliffe Borough, FA Women's Cup
Rovers Ladies 1-0 OOH Lincoln (AET)

Rovers Ladies booked an FA Women's Cup quarter-final tie away to Everton thanks to a dramatic 1-0 win over OOH Lincoln.

Katie Anderton missed a second-half penalty but made amends with a spectacular overhead kick two minutes from the end of extra-time.

Rovers dominated throughout, having two goals disallowed for offside and being repeatedly denied by former keeper Kay Hawke.

Anderton thought she had opened the scoring on three minutes, but the striker had just strayed offside.

Rovers were again denied by the linesman's flag midway through the first half when Kate Ward headed home Karen Burke's cross, but another player was deemed to be in an active position at the time.

The home side continued to pile on the pressure after the break, but Hawke again stood up to the test with several great saves.

Even when Rovers were awarded a penalty 20 minutes from time, Anderton failed to find a way past the former England international.

Extra-time followed a similar pattern to the 90 minutes, with Rovers in the ascendancy, but with the prospect of penalties looming large, the deadlock was finally broken when Burke crossed and Anderton fired an acrobatic bicycle kick into the bottom corner of the goal.

After the game, manager Adam Lakeland said: "I'm absolutely delighted to get through to the last eight of the competition once again.

"We knew it would be a difficult game against Lincoln, as we've found out to our cost in the past. They are a physical team, with a few ex-Rovers, which always makes for a spicy affair.

"However, the players I picked were fantastic. They stuck to the game plan we put in place and executed it exceptionally well. It would have been a very difficult pill to swallow if we hadn't won, having dominated for long, long spells.

"The players deserve a lot of credit for continuing to knock on the door and to win it so late on, as well as for showing the character and concentration levels not to gift Lincoln a goal.

"That's now back-to-back clean sheets and hopefully we can carry that into Wednesday night's Lancashire Cup semi-final against Preston and take that into another tasty cup clash away to Everton this weekend."

ROVERS: Hill, Burke, Roberts, Twohig, Harding, Kane, Shepherd, Preston, Campbell (sub Walker 65 mins), Anderton, Ward (sub Sheen 65 mins).

Subs not used: Carroll, Heyes, Emmanuel.

Pictures courtesy of Kipax.com