Walsall Wood 3 Coleshill 0 - Report
GRITTY Walsall Wood seized the initiative and ended up winning this stop-start encounter at home to ponderous Coleshill Town.
The hosts had to survive a scare within 30 seconds when Chris Cowley hit the ground as he dashed across keeper Dale Eve but vehement protests were dismissed.
The Wood led out of nothing 15 minutes in, Charlie Manners reacting quicker than the three white shirts around him to a long punt forward, lobbing advancing keeper Joel Chadwick as defender Gio Dainty raced in vain to get back.
There was a flurry of action in first-half stoppage time, Elliot Ball glancing over an inviting inswinging corner from Ryan Snape for Coleshill before Ross Evans’s swing across goal from the right rattled the top of the bar for the hosts.
It continued to be scrappy in the second half but with the Wood always looking to pounce as the visitors played out from the back, the second arrived in the 57th minute, Manners bundling in at the near post.
Little happened from there until Coleshill veteran Michael McGrath was sent off for a second booking for re-entering the field of play without the referee's permission.
Wood substitute Sam Unitt then rounded things off in style, latching on to a flick-on to round Chadwick and tuck into the empty net in the second minute of added time.
Wood: Eve, Mansell, Cooper, Brown, Charlton, Liam Riley-Stewart, Manners, Akinwe, Botfield (Unitt, 84), Evans (Dias 90+1), Fitzpatrick. Unused subs: McSkeane, Hawkings.
