WILLING The Wanderers overcame Sarum Youth Seniors Reserves’ stubbornness to waltz into the final of the Lord Bledisloe Cup.

A convincing 5-0 display, after a trio of successive defeats, put them through to the cup final of a trophy they were once winners of.

With the focus very much on putting a run of bad results behind them, the hosts dominated possession from the start.

Player/manager Liam McConnell, making his first start in a year, thought he’d opened the scoring, only to be denied by the linesman’s flag for offside.

Adam Jones and Nick Newman both went close but the Sarum keeper was in fine form and managed to keep the scores level going into the interval.

The second half continued in the same fashion and the deadlock was finally broken when stalwart Ben Coveney picked out Steph Tinkler, whose first time left-footed shot flew into the net after 56 minutes. The lead was doubled moments later, a wellworked attack led to Tinkler nodding McConnell’s cross for Adam Jones to smash home his first of the day.

Later, substitute Tim Fewins saw his shot parried into the path of Jones who made no mistake from close range for his second goal.

Fewins then notched up his 16th in as many games and then it was left to birthday boy Coveney to convert a fifth goal 11 minutes from time to seal an emphatic cup victory.

Manager McConnell said: “Credit to Sarum, they’re a young talented side.

“I was particularly impressed with their young goalkeeper, certainly one to watch out for. Unfortunately, for them, we were in the mood to put things right and you could see, going in at half time, how much it meant to the lads. It was important to keep a lid on the frustrations they caused us in the first half and in the end we scored some wellworked goals and we look forward to the cup final now.”

In the Salisbury and District (Saturday) Premier League, Devizes Inn smashed Chalk Valley 4-1 while Amesbury King Arms shared the spoils with Porton Sports after a 1-1 draw.