Benhall St Mary manager Carl Wilkins hailed his impressive Badgers side after the SIL Division One champions shocked Senior Division runners-up Achilles, to win the Bob Coleman Cup last night.
The coastal team left it late to grab victory, Kelsey Trotter scoring in the 89th minute to complete a historic double in Wilkins’ first full season as manager.
“It’s been such a brilliant season and we have worked so hard to get to this point,” said Wilkins.
“We had a gameplan early on and we stuck to it against a fantastic team in Achilles.
“It was a great game, end-to-end, and both teams could have had two or three goals in the first half, but I think we just about deserved to win it and I am over the moon.
While Trotter grabbed the winner, it was skipper Chris Sillett that had dragged his side back into the game from a goal down, with a superb free-kick on the stroke of half-time, before giving the Division One side the lead three minutes after the break with a good header.
“Chris is Benhall through and through and if you were to cut him in half he would bleed black and white,” Wilkins added.
“He wasn’t quite right today, he had a bit of an injury, but he always gives you 110 per cent and, along with Chris Wright leads from the front, and inspires the team.”
Sillett notched his 25th and 26th goals of an impressive season with his brace at Woodbridge Town last night and is a number of key men for Wilkins’ side.
“We have so much belief in this side, when you look at the changing room and we have Kelsey Trotter, Shane Hambling, Chris Wright and Chris (Sillett) – they are old school players that have played higher.
“We knew Achilles were going to come at us hard and we rode our luck at times and dug in.”
Benhall will now turn their attentions to the SIL Senior Division and sharing a division with Achilles, who having finished runners-up in the top-flight, also won the Suffolk Senior Cup.
“We knew getting out of Division One was going to be tough, there are some good teams in there,” Wilkins explained.
“We will hold our own with the majority of teams in the Senior Division and hopefully we can finish in the top half.”
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