By Gareth Davies at Silver Street (Friday)

Willand Rovers 1 Truro City 4

TRURO’S pre-season campaign continued with a comfortable win over Willand Rovers on Friday night.

The visitors were led by a brace from talismanic striker Tyler Harvey with Dan Rooney and Billy Palfrey also finding the mark for John Askey’s charges.

The game should have been out of sight at the break, but City were left to rue a hatful of missed chances.

Willand, with their only meaningful effort throughout the entire 90 minutes, took the lead early on through midfielder Jack Kennell. But City finally found the mark through Palfrey’s header in the dying embers of the first half.

The first of Harvey’s goals, just after the break, put City in command before a fine individual Rooney effort opened up a two-goal cushion.

Preparations for both teams was far from ideal with a serious accident on the M5 closing the motorway in both directions. This saw the kick-off delayed for an initial 35 minutes, but with two of the three officials not arriving until after 8.20pm, play did not get underway until 8.30pm.

But City raced from the traps like they had at Torpoint on Tuesday.

The left side combination of Dom Johnson-Fisher and Ryan Law caused Willand all sorts of problems with the former setting up Palfrey for the first chance of note after just three minutes.

Palfrey couldn’t keep his effort down and shortly after, C Trialist’s shot was deflected wide. Johnson-Fisher then broke clear and was denied by the legs of home custodian George Burton.

Against the run of play, though, Willand went up the other end and opened the scoring after 13 minutes when Kennell found space in the box and arrowed the ball past Dan Lavercombe in the City goal to break the deadlock.

The Tinners almost restored parity immediately when Sam Sanders charged forward and he fed Johnson-Fisher. The former Whitehawk winger cut inside and found D Trilaist who couldn’t find the target from eight yards out.

With Will Dean controlling the game in midfield, City dominated the rest of the half without carving out a clear-cut chance until six minutes before the interval.

A through ball released Palfrey and in on goal, he, like D Trialist, fired wide of Burton’s goal.

The woodwork then came to Willand’s rescue when B Trialist’s curling effort crashed back off the post and C Trialist’s follow-up effort was tipped over by Burton for a corner.

The resulting flag kick from Dean finally resulted in a Truro goal when he found Palfrey inside the six-yard box to power home an unstoppable header.

At the break, City made four changes as Harvey, Neal, Rooney and skipper Connor Riley-Lowe were all thrust into the fray.

And within five minutes of the interval, Neal and Harvey combined for Truro’s second. Dean spotted Neal’s run and he found City’s number nine who finished with aplomb.

The third just after the hour mark when City scored the goal of the game. Neal held the ball up brilliantly on half way to turn and find the onrushing Rooney.

He outpaced the Willand defence and with Burton away from his goal, Rooney lifted the ball over the Rovers stopper with his left foot.

Five minutes from time, the class of Harvey came to the fore again when he found space in the box and in trademark fashion, found the mark emphatically.

The final word nearly went to Neal when a home corner routine broke down and he found himself with the ball just inside the Willand half. Burton was way off his line and Neal’s audacious chip went just wide.