In their third meeting of the season, Wellingborough Saxons came out victorious over local rivals Wilby in a hotly-contested derby game, courtesy of two first half goals.

Neither side completely dominated the opening stages with sporadic shots heading at either goal. Wilby deployed their offside trap to good effect early on, with the high line persuading the Saxons forwards not to waste their energy chasing the ball down. It was the Saxons who found their rhythm first however and they began to exert themselves on the midfield.

A good passage of play forced Wilby backwards and into abandoning the offside trap as they sought to close down the opposition. This allowed Matt Fox to release Christean Pawlyszyn on 18 minutes and he turned outside his man on the edge of the area and was brought down. Liam Swane stepped up to take the free kick and fired it in. Wilby keeper Chris England played hot-potato with the ball but eventually brought it under control. Two minutes later he had another effort from a similar position when he himself was tripped. The Wilby offside trap failed to catch Stuart Horton whose touch initially let him down. He recovered and squared the ball to Swane whose quick feet drew the foul. Swane adopted a different approach with his second kick, keeping it low to the ground as it found the far bottom corner of the net.

Within four minutes they had doubled their advantage through Pawlyszyn. Matt Fox’s pinpoint pass caused the offside trap to fail again as Pawlyszyn timed his run to perfection, leaving the defence flat-footed as he picked up the ball and fired home with his second touch.

The second half saw momentum swing back to Wilby. They were unfortunate when on the hour when Jack Stevens created their first clear cut chance. With the defence unable to close him down, he unleashed a rocket which Saxons stopper Ben Hughes did superbly well to turn onto the bar. Ten minutes later, Swane picked up the ball outside the area and his lofted drive thumped straight into the cross bar and bounced down into the danger are before being hooked clear.

On 72 minutes Wilby finally got the goal their pressure deserved. A hopeful punt forward from the defence found Connor Hartwell who latched onto it and thumped it beyond Hughes. With the Saxons now on the back-foot, Wilby really ought to have equalised through Jamie Hook, but his dipping free-kick skimmed the top of the bar. The Saxons survived that, and a goalmouth scramble deep into stoppage time to hold on for their first silverware.