Brandon Hammé saluted his players and reflected on Mill Hill Dons' "best-ever win" as they came from a goal down to beat Premier Division Faithfold A to reach the last eight of the Jewish FA Cup.
January 20, 2019 15:58
PETER MORRISON TROPHY ROUND TWO
FAITHFOLD DOC MM A 2 MILL HILL DONS 4
Despite being separated by two divisions, the first half was relatively tight and cagey and if it were not for an unfortunate goalkeeping error from the Dons 'keeper in the 21st minute, which allowed an Avi Markiewicz strike to sneak in, the sides would have gone into the break level at 0-0.
The second half followed a similar pattern, with Faithfold enjoying the lion's share of possession while not troubling the Dons defence too often.
The boys from Mill Hill though were growing into the game and began to look more threatening on the counter, with Isaac Virchis combining well with Zach Cohen to pull level on the hour mark.
The momentum then began to shift as the Dons bagged three more goals in 10 minutes to put the game out of sight. Nick Phillips' drive from 25 yards gave the Division Two side the lead, before another successful Dons break saw Zach Cohen put some daylight between the teams in the 79th minute.
And, Virchis popped up again moments later to grab his second - and the Dons' fourth - of the game.
Faithfold nicked a late second through Daniel Garfinkle, but it was too little too late as the Dons saw out the remaining minutes to march into the quarter-finals for the first time in the club's history.
Mill Hill Dons boss Brandon Hamme told JC Sport: "I’ve known for a long time this season that we have the quality to challenge the bigger teams in Jewish football. Today we proved that. We dominated and played superbly throughout.
"I’m extremely proud of the boys and undoubtedly the best result in the history of the club.
"To be in the final eight is an incredible achievement but we don’t want to stop there. I believe this journey may have only just begun."
Assistant-manager Jamie Nagioff echoed Hamme's sentiments, and said: "This must surely go down as the greatest result in the history of Mill Hill Dons. We really fancied our chances of causing an upset today and we did just that.
"The effort and intensity was spot on from everyone and we were able to frustrate a team that on paper should have been way out of our league. Credit has to go to our players who executed the game plan to perfection.
"We have showed twice this season that we are capable of competing with top division sides, so it's now on us to maintain this level of performance both in the next round of the cup and back in the league."
Faithfold player-manager Avi Markiewicz told JC Sport: "It was another tough day at the office. Yet again, we're really struggling to get a team out at the moment. This time we had to take along a couple of fringe C-team players due to several last-minute pull-outs.
We dominated heavily first half and should have been ahead by more than one. Unfortunately we suffered two injuries early in the first half. One player continued as a passenger and the other was forced off. With only nine men it was always going to be an uphill struggle.
"Mill Hill continued to push forward and got their reward and then a second. As we continued to push we left more and more space at the back and they punished us.
"Good luck to Mill Hill in their cup run. Not really sure what to say that’s not been said already."