Premier League, Tuesday 8th August 2006

Preston Athletic 1 Whitehill Welfare 4

Welfare secured all three points in their 4-1 victory at the Pennypit against Preston Athletic. However,  Preston were mugged after missing a bucketload of chances and were undone due to some uncharacteristic defending.

Rab Finlay, commented afterwards, "We started very, very poorly and then scored two goals against the run of play. We were extremely fortunate to be two goals up and I could not wait until half-time.

"We exchanged some strong words at the interval and we thought we had managed to settle the players but at the start of the second half we proceeded to do exactly the same as we had done in the first.

"However, after that opening ten minutes we were outstanding all over the park and thoroughly deserved our win, although 4-1 is probably unfair to Preston."

Preston were well on top in the early stages, but missed some excellent opportunities and were caught out when a Wayne McIntosh cross was fired home by  Alan McDonagh. Nicky Walker then set up trialist Ian Black to net from close range.

Willie Kirk pulled a goal back for Preston with a tremendous strike before half-time, but just after the hour mark in the second half, the flying machine run of Nicky Walker raced past Costello and his low cross was turned into his own net by Chris Barton.

Walker then took advantage of a poor passback to set up McIntosh, who scored with a neat side-footed shot from just inside the penalty area.