(08/02/2000)
Following last week's debacle against Liverpool in the League, Warwick Riga bounced back with an emphatic three nil victory in the Cup. The win takes them into the quarter-finals for the first time and restored some pride back into a shell-shocked outfit.
The fourth round tie away to non-League Swiss Cottage was a potential banana skin for First Division Riga. With Cottage having beaten Second Division Salford in the previous round they stood to be no pushovers and with the Liverpool result still ringing in Warwick's ears the portents for an upset were already present. With a large crowd of supporters ready to applaud any Cottage point, the Londoners rewarded their fans by taking the first two points of the match. However Riga quickly responded through Richie Meade and Pete Abraham. Once the visitors edged in front, the writing started to appear on the Cottage wall. The gap between the two sides grew progressively as Phil Wyles, John Gilling and Graham Duckett supported Abraham and Meade in a Warwick harvesting of points. The end was as conclusive as the 25 - 14 score line suggests.
Although the first blood of the second set went to Riga, it was Cottage's turn to reply in kind and take a slight lead. The power serving of Warwick's Gilling proved their undoing as he exploded his side into a 13 - 7 advantage but still Cottage were un-awed. Again they came back to within a point of levelling the scores, before a service error saw them lose their way. From then on, Abraham, Meade and Dan Showler showed the home side what Division One class is all about as Riga closed out the non-Leaguers 25 - 19.
The third set quickly became a Riga romp, as they seemed to score at least three points for every one of their hosts'. With Nigel Malone entering the fray for Warwick and adding his name to the scorecard, Riga were always in control. The emphatic victory was secured at 25 - 15 with a Gilling - Young block that snuffed out the Swiss Cottage attacker as surely as it did his team.
"After Liverpool it was important to get back into winning ways," commented captain Tom Young afterwards. "The result didn't really matter so much as the attitude. We got both right tonight and I think we can put last week down to one of those blips all teams have in a season."
That opinion will be examined in detail on Saturday when Warwick visit bogey team Stoke in their next National League Division One fixture. The Potters gave Riga a lesson in control when they visited Warwick earlier in the season. The three-nil whitewash inflicted a dent in the Riga bandwagon, following on as it did from Warwick's first win of the season. With Riga having never beaten Stoke, the odds against victory are high, but Stoke themselves are not the team of previous years and in that lies Warwick's chance. "I've said before and I'll keep on saying it. We are a good side who, on our day, can compete with the best teams in the land. Our problem is consistency. Once we get that right, we'll be up there at the top of the League. Stoke we can beat - if we play to our standard and are consistent," opines Young.