Absence and injury forced a change in selection from our last match against West Bridgford, with Sanderson and Gillies playing as makeshift defenders alongside captain Ferguson in a back three.

Upfront there was a debut for emerging talent Morgan from year nine and a recall for Taylor in goal - who had been unavailable for the previous game.

Morgan, an old fashioned English forward in the sense he holds up the ball well and is happy to run the channels, proved to be the perfect foil for the outstanding Langfield in a fluid 3-5-2 formation.

Langfield opened the scoring with a goal of the season contender early in the first half. After receiving the ball from Morgan he danced and pirouetted around Tuxford’s entire defence before deftly scooping the ball over the advancing keeper.

Sanguinazzi, playing his preferred number ten position, then ghosted into the box to guide home a low cross from Price to make it two goals to nil.

At the other end of the field Tuxford’s outstanding right winger was having a ‘Battle Royale’ with the combative Gillies.

Tuxford seemed to get themselves back into the game with a wonder strike from wide on the right, with Taylor being left no chance to make a save. Almost immediately, Morgan timed his run to perfection to beat the offside trap, racing onto a throughball in the inside right position and confidently passing the ball into the net, low to the keeper’s left.

Langfield was unplayable at times, with his pace, power and trickery proving to be too much for the Tuxford defence to deal with. He inevitably doubled his tally with another well taken goal after a surge into the area full of verve and vigour.

With Kneller shielding the defence in his ‘Makele’ role, Tuxford struggled to have any penetration through the centre of the field, relying on the talented right winger to be their only real outlet. Gillies, seemed to be enjoying the physical nature of this battle and was now starting to dominate his opponent with well timed interceptions and the occasional slide tackle.

Nisbett added to the score just before half time with another confident finish, passing the ball into the corner of the net. Giving Chilwell a comfortable 5-1 lead at the break and affording the manager the opportunity to give a full debut to Southgate, replacing the outstanding Sanderson and Robinson to replace the tiring Nisbett on the wing.

With the rain lashing down, the pitch had by now turned into a quagmire and a war of footballing attrition rather than ‘the beautiful game’ we are usually accustomed to from this talented team. 

With the introduction of Mackenzie in the second half - in a cameo role as centre forward - Chilwell scored a further three goals to book our passage into the next round of the County Cup.

Langfield was outstanding throughout and deserves special praise for his dominant display. However, my man of the match goes to Gillies, who showed great strength of character and no shortage of bravery in the tackle to nullify the threat of Tuxford’s standout player.

A big thank you to Kneller, Southgate and Ferguson who stayed behind at the end to help Mr Lodge take down the nets, collect in the kit and take in all the footballs in truly horrendous weather conditions.

This team certainly has the potential to go much further in the County Cup and the outstanding displays by all involved will undoubtedly create a selection headache for the management team of Mr Lodge and Mr Littlewood.