Workington Reds retained the Shaun Hocking Memorial Trophy with a 4-1 win at Whitehaven Amateurs.
But it took a much improved second-half performance from Danny Grainger’s side to wrap-up their victory.
Indeed they fell behind to an early goal and were still trailing at the break.
After quickly gaining parity at the start of the second-half, Reds continued to dominate – passing the ball much more accurately than they had done in the first half.
Grainger used a number of trialists during the game in what was the Reds first game of their pre-season programme.
Their West Lancashire League hosts, also in action for the first time, couldn’t have asked for a better start.
They forced a corner on nine minutes and when Reds failed to clear the ball dropped kindly for Lewis Tidy, a former Workington player, to drive home.
Workington looked disjointed and Whitehaven looked capable of causing more problems on the break.
When Reds did finally settle new signing Lewis Reilly brought an excellent stop out of Tom Fowler, another ex-Workington player, when he lashed in a free kick.
Whitehaven were still ahead at the break and Grainger stayed out on the pitch to administer his half-time team talk.
Within two minutes of the restart Reds were level. A Dav Symington free-kick wasn’t cleared and Liam Lightfoot was able to finish-off from close range.
Ten minutes later Reds went ahead when new signing Greg McCarragher slipped the ball through for Symington to finish with a glorious, curling effort beyond Fowler.
Workington continued to dominate with their noses in front and McCarragher hit the bar while Keelan Leslie had a shot deflected just over.
Reds scored twice more in the last five minutes. One of the trialists played in McCarragher to finish well and then the scorer returned the compliment for the trialist to notch the fourth goal.
