FRIENDLY: Curzon Ashton 1 Wanderers 3

Curzon Ashton

Josh Dacres-Cogley and Cameron Jerome scored their first goals in a Wanderers’ shirt as the Whites continued their winning start to pre-season.

Summer signing Dacres-Cogley struck after just three minutes at the Tameside Stadium to underline the positive start to his Whites’ career.

And Jerome got his name on the scoresheet early in the second half to open his account in another lively showing from the experienced striker.

Dacres-Cogley was one of five outfield players to be replaced at half-time as boss Ian Evatt spread the game time across the fit members of a squad missing Dan Nlundulu, Declan John and Ricardo Almeida Santos.

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Curzon Ashton

Skipper Santos was absent due to a family issue as Gethin Jones took the captain’s armband.

And it was Jones who scored Wanderers’ second goal in a dominant first-half performance.

Curzon Ashton pulled a goal back just after the break when Jack Iredale brought down Jamie Allen and ex-Blackburn Rovers’ youngster Stefan Mols slotted home from the spot for the National League North side.

But Jerome quickly restored the two-goal advantage in the 64th-minute when he calmly lifted the ball over keeper Cameron Mason from George Thomason’s through-ball.

Wanderers then made a number of further changes to give several of their younger players an outing and balance the workload two games into the pre-season schedule.

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Curzon Ashton

This second outing was a step up in tempo and intensity from the weekend’s opener at Bamber Bridge as Wanderers made the most of an excellent playing surface to play some fine football in a first half which could easily have brought more goals.

Dacres-Cogley set the tone when the wing-back collected a lay-off from the busy Kyle Dempsey to fire home an angled finish.

The former Tranmere man was also involved in the second goal when he ran onto a Will Forrester pass to pull the ball back for Jones to steer a first-time finish into the far corner.

And the Curzon Ashton goal remainder under threat as Aaron Morley rattled a post, Dempsey and Dacres-Cogley forced Mason into sharp saves, Victor Adeboyejo clipped an effort just wide and the lively Dion Charles went close on his first appearance of the warm-up campaign.

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Curzon Ashton

Joel Coleman was unable to prevent Mols making it 2-1 from the spot after replacing Nathan Baxter at half-time but was never extended thereafter as Wanderers again did most of the attacking.

Jerome’s tidy finish proved the only addition after Dempsey had again been denied by Mason following another typical forward burst.

But it took goalline blocks to deny Jerome and teenage substitute Matt Tweedley from adding to the tally as Wanderers stepped things up ahead of Saturday’s visit to Chester FC.

Wanderers: Baxter (Coleman HT); Jones (Toure 70), Forrester (Pettifer 75), Iredale (Inwood 68); Sheehan (Thomason HT); Dacres-Cogley (Sadlier HT), Morley (Khumbeni 65), Dempsey (Tweedley 63), R Williams (Conway HT), Charles (Jerome HT), Adeboyejo (Bodvarsson HT).

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