North Village took a big step to securing a place in the Dudley Eve Trophy semi-finals with an emphatic victory over Somerset Trojans in a lopsided group A contest at Goose Gosling Field yesterday.

A youthful Trojans squad were simply out of their depth against a well organised Village team firing on all cylinders.

Village dictated the tempo from the outset and once they broke the deadlock right after the first-half water break, the writing was on the wall for a Trojans side who had no answer to the onslaught.

Shayne Hollis gave Village a deserved lead when he squeezed Tahmi Williams’s cross inside Trojans’ goalkeeper Yizharyah Williams’s near post.

Richard Quinn, the Trojans right back, then headed a Hollis corner into his own goal to send Village into the break with a two-goal cushion.

Things got even worst for Trojans early in the second half when goalkeeper Williams, among a trio of players making their senior debuts for the West Enders, fumbled Trey Durahm’s long range shot and the ball trickled under his body and across the line.

Che’Kai Caisey then came off the bench to turn in Demetre Daniels’s corner to complete Village’s rout.

Village came close to adding a fifth when Keishen Bean’s rasping 30-yard half-volley dipped on to the crossbar.

To their credit, Trojans never gave up and where unfortunate not to pull one back when Leo Burgess, the striker, rattled the upright with a thunderous left-footed half-volley from a slight angle that might have made former Trojans winger Dwayne “Tricks” Richardson green with envy.

Burgess also had a penalty saved by Tahj Bell, the Village goalkeeper, right on the final whistle of the match after substitute Zaarion Darrell was floored in the box by Village left back Williams.

Village now top their group and require only a draw in their final group match against Robin Hood to advance to the semi-finals for the second straight season.

“We are hoping that we can do a little better this year by getting to the final and win something,” Devarr Boyles, the Village head coach, said.

“It was very important for us to get this result because we know three points pretty much gets us into the next round so hopefully we’ve done enough with the three points and the goals we got today.”

Boyles refused to take all of the credit for his team’s clinical display.

“I want to congratulate the team and, more importantly, [assistant coach] Randy Spence, who is like the unsung hero,” Boyles said. “I was travelling and Randy has done an excellent job in my absence and deserves the works. Today I just assisted from the side and this is coach Randy’s day.”

Justin Corday, the Trojans captain, chalked up his team’s heavy defeat as a “learning experience”.

“Winning is nice, but we are out here to iron out of the kinks from our preseason and so it was definitely a learning experience for us,” he said. “We have a lot of stuff we have been working on and a couple of new guys have come in so it’s just a work in progress and we will get there.”

Corday believes his team can bounce back and get a favourable result against Hood in their final group match and advance to the next stage of a competition that features the top six teams in the Premier Division from the previous season.

“Everybody can beat everybody on any given day and so we just have to keep working hard in training,” he said. “We had three players making their debuts today [Williams, Jeze Butterfield and Darrell] such as the youngster in goal who had a couple of mistakes, which is going to happen.

“We have a lot of youngsters coming through who are only looking to get better.”

SCORERS

North Village

Hollis 31, Quinn (og) 42, Durham 53, Caisey 85

North Village (4-5-1): T Bell — J Thomas (sub: C Caisey, 63min), T Williams, J Davis, K Knights — D Daniels, T Watson, T Durham, K Bean, S Hollis (sub: A Johnston, 80) — L Dill (sub: P Smith, 87). Booked: Caisey. Substitutes not used: M Thomas, P Castle.

Somerset (4-3-3): Y Williams — R Cann (sub: Z Darrell, 61), T Ming, C Durham, R Quinn — M Joell (sub: J Butterfield, 87), A Trott (sub: S Tatem, 75), J Corday — J Seymour, J Ratteray-Smith, L Burgess. Booked: Ming. Substitutes not used: J Morrisey, A Charles.

Referee: M Wyer