County cruise through

STOCKPORT COUNTY moved into the third round of the FA Trophy after a comfortable victory over Kidderminster Harriers in their second round replay.

Goals from Rhys Turner and Ben McKenna, along with a late Bohan Dixon penalty were enough to earn the Hatters the victory at Edgeley Park.

It sets up a trip to York Road to face Maidenhead United in the third round, with that match set to take place on Saturday 3 February.

Both teams had chances in the opening stages of the match, but it was Stockport who managed to make the breakthrough after 25 minutes.

Jimmy Ball’s header found Jason Oswell, who in turn then played in Turner, allowing the striker to fire past Kidderminster goalkeeper Brandon Hall and make it 1-0 to the home side.

They carried that lead into the second half, and were then forced to defend well to cut out a number of Kidderminster opportunities and deny them from getting back on level terms.

It remained a tightly-fought contest up until the 73rd minute, when County then doubled their lead thanks to a goal from McKenna on his birthday.

He had only been on the field for 15 minutes after coming off the bench to replace Turner, but he made sure he made an impact as his deflected shot ended up in the back of the net.

Stockport were then given a golden opportunity to put the finishing touches on their win when they were awarded a penalty after a foul by James Pearson on Darren Stephenson.

Dixon stepped forward to take the spot-kick, and duly delivered by sending Hall the wrong way and scoring to make the final score 3-0.