Hemsby made the short trip to Caister to play Old Hall in the Norfolk Junior Cup.

The hosts put out one of the fancied teams, Wells Town, in the previous round so Hemsby knew this was going to be a tough tie but they came through it, winning 2-1.

Hemsby had one of their strongest starting line-ups in quite a while and and following some great play between Joe Youngs and Lewis Stebbings, they carved an opening for Johnny Howell to get a shot away which didn’t miss by much.

It was Howell who opened the scoring in the sixth minute when Youngs found Reece Hopper and he laid the ball perfectly for Howell to strike his shot from 25 yards into the bottom corner.

Hemsby went in search of more goals and Russell Marriott fashioned a chance for himself after going on a run from left back, but he fired straight into the keeper’s arms. A minute later the keeper was called into action again to make a fine save when Howell looked as though he’d picked out the top corner out from just outside the area.

Rui Goncalves was then called upon for his first piece of the action as he thwarted a striker when faced one-on-one.

The home side came out all guns blazing for the second half and after creating a couple of openings a missed tackle presented the winger with a chance and he finished well to square things up.

Hemsby had very good chances before retaking the lead. Kyle Simnett sent a glorious ball across the area but it just eluded Mikey Grayson and Stebbings and then those two combined to create an opening for Grayson, but the keeper saved well.

But from the resulting corner the ball fell kindly for Stebbings to poke the ball home through a crowd from 10 yards to register his first goal for the club.

With 15 minutes left, a free-kick was launched into the Hemsby area and although an Old Hall player managed to get his head to the ball first, Goncalves did just enough to put him off and the ball went over. That seemed to deflate the Old Hall players and Hemsby’s superior fitness told as they able to see out the game, with Harlen Metcalfe and Jonathan Peirce both going close to extending their advantage.

In an excellent team peformance Howell took the Orbital Procurement Solutions man of the match award. Hemsby visit Hingham in the league tomorrow.