Eastwood visited Clipstone Saturday afternoon looking to return to winning ways after their nine game unbeaten run came to an end at the hands of Sherwood Colliery on Wednesday evening.

Academy star CJ Dunkley who impressed on Wednesday coming off the bench was rewarded with his first start for the first team. Kieran Harrison returned from suspension and replaced the injured Will Heath in the starting XI, Kyle Wrenn also started in front of Rob Mulonga who dropped to the bench. Academy players Kieran Knight and Leyton Nethercot were also included in the sixteen.

With eleven minutes on the clock Clipstone took a surprise lead when they got around the back of the Eastwood defence and Josh Pickering poked home to open the scoring. A fairly uneventful first period was sprung into life when Kyle Wrenn was shown a red card for a late challenge, leaving the red badgers going in to half time a goal and a man down.

At the break 1st Team Gaffer James Jepson realising he needed to make a change introduced Danny Hayes who replaced Kieran Knight. Eastwood equalised four minutes into the second half when Sam Meakin's corner was headed home by Patrick Webb. Eastwood were soon in front when another corner was headed into the Clipstone net this time Danny Hayes with the crucial touch.

Mid-way through the half Kieren Watson's sublime strike gave Eastwood a two goal cushion that was quickly halved through Clipstone's Jordan Whitehead. Eastwood hung on for the remaining twenty-two minutes to get the three points.

1st Team Manager's Thoughts;

“Well I could start with all the negatives, the sending off, lack of effort etc but we won 3-2 and move onto next weekends tough fixtures.

“It wasn’t working and I made changes and it worked. The lads gave us a shift second half that this club expects but as I said earlier we will continue to improve week on week. Kieran Harrison played his first game of the season today and set all three up so I am pleased for him. CJ made his first start for the club, Leyton made his made his first appearance as well and Danny Hayes has come back in and been brilliant”

“But I must say Watto (Kieren Watson) was different class today. Worked hard, encouraged and took his goal superbly”

For all the match pictures click here