Magpies knock Robins off the bark in five goal thriller

I have to say that there is an excellent setup at Ilkeston Town and John McGuinley's side put up a good fight and believe you me, they could have had five goals aswell as Notts in todays classic friendly.

County kicked off to a magical start in the second minute when Ilkeston were hit on the Counter punch. Paul Bolland was on the end of a pass and a goalkeeping error and he hit home to give Notts an early lead.

With Allsopp still in Australia dealing with his overseas provlems Notts needed a striker with a powerful eye for goal, cue - Mark Stallard. He got on the end of a Marcel Cas cross to make it 2-0. After Cas used his power and pace whilst darting down the right hand side whipping in the cross for Stallard to give Notts a two goal lead.

The next goal was a bit of an embarrassment for the Home goalkeeping. He messed up whilst playing around with the ball and when he kicked the ball Baraclough was there. It seemed the Town goalkeeper had two hands on it but the ball then squirmed loose and Baraclough won the ball and hit it home to give the Magpies a three nil advantage.

Ilkeston Town though, missed chance after chance and on a whole Notts' defence was slapdash and in the second half Ilkeston went through the Notts defence and the big centre midfield hit the underside of Garden's bar and it bounced off the line and Fenton cleared.

Caskey had a good game for me, he played some high quality balls and he didn't give the ball away too often. It was Caskey infact who scored for me, Notts' best goal. He played a one-two with Baraclough down the left hand channel and Caskey recieved the ball back and thumped the ball in the back of the net.

Ilkeston continued to miss chance after chance, when Saul Deeney came on he stood big in a one on one situation and Deeney blocked a powerful Ilkeston Town shot.

Further into the second half, Mark Stallard had a little scrummage with an Ilkeston centre half, the Town player was deliberatly holding Stallard down on the floor for some bizarre reason. Shortly after this Stallard was brough off along with Hackworth, Dimech and Brough.

Former Notts player Ryan Ford was playing for Ilkeston and he was brought off in the second half. But it was Paul Bolland who grabbed his second goal and Notts' fifth.

Overall it was avery good Notts County performance. But, unlike the scoreline suggests County do need to improve on their defence who were sloppy at times and were careless on set pieces and indeed in open play.

Ilkeston Town

Well Notts' next game is on this mini pre season tour in Cornwall versus Porthleven. Today though was enjoyable and enteraining. Ilkeston have a very good setup and they have a friendly bunch of supporters and ground staff. They have a very smart little ground, a good pitch, a decent team and I can only wish them success for the forthcoming season.

As for the Cornwall tour, Allsopp will be back and this performance versus Ilkeston will certainly shadow out some bad memories of the reserve team and some of the first team's dreadful performance against Grantham in midweek. But, Notts played some attractive football today but as I said the defence needs operating on.

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Notts Team: Garden, Holmes, N Fenton, Ireland, Nicholson, Cas, Caskey, Bolland, Baraclough, Stallard, Heffernan
Subs: Deeney for Garden, Stone for Holmes, A Fenton for N Fenton, Foster for Ireland, Brough for Caskey, Dimech for Baraclough and Hackworth for Stallard
Goals: Bolland 2, Caskey, Stallard, Baraclough