Cowburn delight at scoring twice against former club

Cowburn, in his second season with the Colliers, opened the scoring in the eighth minute and added a quickfire second only five minutes later.

Newcastle-born Cowburn said afterwards: “Obviously I always back myself on set pieces like against West Auckland when I hit two and was happy when they both went in because it’s not very often that you achieve that in the same game.

"Today for the first, I looked up and there wasn’t much on but I always back myself to test the ‘keeper from anywhere really and this one has gone in the top corner. I thought the second one was well worked. It was a great ball in from Danny Anderson and it was just up to me to put it away - and I did.

“I’ll not always have a good game but I’ll always work hard and show that I want to be here and that I want to play (for the club).”

Ashington manager Ian Skinner said the players deserve all the plaudits for Saturday’s victory..

“The players deserve all the credit to be fair,” he said. “They were just as disappointed as everybody else with Tuesday night’s performance and defeat against Redcar Athletic and they were keen to go out and right the wrongs - so my job was relatively easy because you could just tell they were up for it.

"They knew themselves that they fell slightly below the standards which we expect on Tuesday and I think that showed a little bit in the first half today.”

He added: “There were lots of positives in terms of taking some chances. If we had won 4-3 against Redcar Athletic on Tuesday, they couldn’t have argued with the amount of chances we had first half – the difference today was that we took them and were clinical in the final third.”

Skinner was happy with Cowburn, who playing against his former club, scored the opening two goals.

"I told him ‘go and put a little show on’ against your former club,” he said, “and I thought he did that and took his two goals very well - and to be honest, he could have gone on to hit a hat-trick.”