MINEHEAD bowed out of the Somerset Senior Cup, after taking higher league opposition Yatton & Cleeve United to penalties following a goalless away draw for ninety minutes.

The first real goalmouth action saw Minehead thankful to keeper Kyran Wilkins for parrying a powerful shot by Sam Morris after a free kick was awarded in a dangerous positon a few yards outside the penalty box.

Minehead were a little sloppy during the early exchanges, uncharacterisitically giving possession away, but after this disjointed spell they found some cohesion and noticeably started to take the game to their Premier Division hosts.

Enjoying this much better spell, they were nearly rewarded when the returning Rob Vickers went close to breaking the deadlock midway through the first half, when after bursting through the defence his shot from 20 yards from the angle of the box went a foot the wrong side of the post. Josh Elston was the next to cause Yatton problems, and cuttng in from a wide position his audacious chip from 25 yards out went fractionally over the bar, with The Blues now looking the likeliest to open the scoring.

Early in the second half, Vickers’ 35-yard drive cannoned off the crossbar with Tom Murphy in the home goal beaten. A slick one-two with Toby Waghorn saw Will Singleton-Voss engineer an opportunity for a shot at goal, but his effort was relatively comfortable for Murphy.

A quarter of a hour into the second half, Sam Jackson replaced Singleton-Voss as Minehead continued to impose themselves, and another fierce shot from Vickers was well held by Murphy.

Minehead boss Craig Carr continued to change his personnel wisely, and brought on Hubi Wejnerowski, Scott Kivell and Martyn Phillips, as both teams strived for a winner in normal time, and a place in the next round. but both goalkeepers kept their sheets clean, and the tie went straight to a penalty shootout after 90 minutes.

After five spot kicks for each side, a winner could still not be found, with both sides having netted four times. The first two rounds of sudden death still saw the scores level, but finally, after Minehead’s eighth penalty had been saved by Murphy, it was one of Yatton’s second half substitutes Tom Starr who won the game for his side beating Wilkins, who had ironically earlier scored the most convincingly struck of all 16 penalties.

Minehead: Kyran Wilkins, Bertie Harvey-Larmer, Ollie Hall, Louis Burge, Ryan Wilkins, Will Singleton-Voss, Stefan Phillips, Josh Elston, Toby Waghorn, Sam Heath, Rob Vickers. Subs: Hubi Wejnerowski, Sam Jackson, Martyn Philliips, Scott Kivell (all used). Man of the Match: Ryan Wilkins.

Minehead, who are without a game this coming weekend, are currently in sixth spot in the first division with two games in hand on leaders Congresbury.