SATURDAY 26th APRIL 2008

VAUXHALL MOTORS 1 v 2 SOUTHPORT

BLUE SQUARE NORTH

Southport cemented their place in the Blue Square North play-offs having made a flying start at Rivacre Park on Saturday, scoring twice inside the first ten minutes. But then already-relegated Motors almost threatened to upset the large traveling army, with a barnstorming late rally, after hot-shot Paul Taylor hit a peach of a free kick with 20 minutes left to play.
                        
The Sandgrounders could not have wished for a better start to this match, which they had to win to be certain of a place in the play-offs.  They struck the opener on 7 minutes when Alex Blakeman made great strides down the left flank before Neil Prince picked his spot from twelve yards.

Before the Motormen could draw breath, the visitors struck again.   This time Tony Gray did the spade work, bringing a good save out of Motors keeper Lloyd Rigby but Neil Robinson was on hand seconds later to apply the finishing touch to the original thrust to make it 2-0 after just 9 minutes. 

Motors rallied for a while with both Ged Brannan and Paul Taylor going close, the latter wasting a great opportunity after a brilliant pass from Tom Field, before Rigby pulled off a string of saves from Prince, Chris Lever and Blakeman, two of which were of the highest quality, leading up to the break.

On the resumption, Southport maintained the upper hand, but an early drive by former Motors player Mark Duffy went over the top and Rigby produced more heroics to twice deny Gray, either side of another off-target strike on the home goal.

But with 20 minutes remaining, Tom Hannigan’s strong run was halted just as he went to pull the trigger and directly from the resultant free kick, Taylor curled a right footer round the defensive wall and beyond Drench to reduce the arrears.

This breathed fresh life into the hosts and Southport became edgy as Motors threw everything at the visitors.  But they stayed strong and ultimately regained the initiative late on to coast to the victory they needed.

Vauxhall: Rigby, Holmes, Owens (Dames 74), Gresty (Griffiths 46), Brannan, Maddox, Field, Hannigan, Carroll, Langton (Smith 46), Taylor.  Subs not used: Hitchen, Williams.