Stockport County 3-1 Charlton Athletic: Will Collar hat-trick sends County into third round

Will Collar’s hat-trick for League Two Stockport County knocked out managerless League One side Charlton Athletic in their FA Cup second-round replay.

Charlton, who sacked Ben Garner on Monday, took an early lead when County keeper Ben Hinchliffe flapped at a corner and the ball bounced in off his own defender Akil Wright.

Stockport began to take control of the tie with Collar side-footing an equaliser as County spurned a number of good first-half efforts.

Ryan Rydel’s free-kick hit the Charlton post early in the second half before Collar blasted home his second from eight yards out before converting a penalty soon after.

County will host fellow League Two side Walsall in the third round on Sunday, 8 January.

The game was a first in charge for Addicks caretaker boss Anthony Hayes and the Irishman made seven changes to the side that lost 1-0 at Cheltenham in the league on Friday.

But for large parts Charlton were second best against opponents from the division below as they failed to win for a seventh successive game in all competitions.

Despite an unchanged side from the one that won 5-0 at Hartlepool on Saturday, Stockport found themselves a goal down from the first corner of the game. Hinchliffe was unsighted as he palmed away a waist-high ball which bounced off defender Wright and dribbled over the line.

County began to get back into it, with Macauley Southam-Hales looking dangerous down the right, and his cross saw Craig MacGillivray pull off a wonderful one-handed save from Paddy Madden’s diving header midway through the first half.

But MacGillivray could do nothing to stop the equaliser when Rydel’s powerful low shot from the left corner of the 18-yard box came back off the foot of the right post and straight to Collar, who made no mistake from six yards.

Charlton were lucky not to concede a 30th-minute penalty when Sean Clare appeared to push over Myles Hippolyte, while MacGillivray did well to keep out two Paddy Madden efforts in quick succession five minutes later.

Collar saw a header go wide before Rydel struck the upright in the 50th minute as Stockport began the second half the way they had ended the first.

But they had to wait until the 73rd minute to go ahead when Hippolyte’s ball into the box was knocked into Collar’s path by Kyle Wootton and he blasted home right-footed.

Collar completed his hat-trick from the spot after Ollie Crankshaw had been fouled in the box by George Dobson, and although Jack Payne went close during nine minutes of stoppage time, Charlton’s woes continued.

Stockport County manager Dave Challinor told BBC Radio Manchester:

“It was a bit of a strange atmosphere, maybe we’re victims of our own success a little bit, a lot of people came here and maybe more than in other games, expected us to win.

“Maybe that was halted by us conceding a poor goal and giving ourselves a bit more to do, but once we equalised I thought we then made it the cup tie we needed it to be.

“I don’t think by any stretch we were brilliant, but what we were is we were tough to play against.

“Will will take all the plaudits, rightly so, he’s now back to his goalscoring form that he was in last year.

“To get a hat-trick in any game is a brilliant achievement, to get it on the TV in an FA Cup tie that takes us through to the third round is really pleasing and something that he’ll remember for the rest of his life.”

Charlton Athletic caretaker manager Anthony Hayes told BBC Radio London:

“It’s not been an easy 48 hours. We’ve a group of players to prepare and a cup tie we wanted to win and progress into the third round. It’s not been a comfortable couple of days.

“We trained on Tuesday morning, we came up yesterday afternoon, we had some good meetings today but at the end of it we’ve lost a cup tie 3-1 and we have to focus now on the league.

“Where we have to improve as a team, we’ve had some real good domination and control with the ball, but what we haven’t done is dominate enough games by creating chances and then stopping the opposition team creating their own chances.

“We have to be better at dominating games by creating more chances than the opposition and being probably more clinical in the final third. Tonight we haven’t worked the goalkeeper anywhere near enough.”

Line-ups Stockport

Formation 3-5-2

1Hinchliffe

4Wright6Horsfall15Johnson

2Southam-Hales14Collar18Croasdale21Hippolyte17Rydel

19Wootton9Madden

Substitutes

Charlton

Formation 3-4-3

13MacGillivray

28Clare5Lavelle48Mitchell

36Chin10Morgan8Forster-Caskey43Campbell

19Payne22Aneke14Kirk

Substitutes

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