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Darlington 1 Newcastle U21s 5
Written by Newcastle Utd
United's under-21s recorded a comfortable pre-season friendly victory at Darlington on Saturday
By Anthony Marshall - Newcastle United Managing Editor
Darlington 1 (Hardy)
Newcastle United Under-21s 5 (Vuckic, Toney, Roberts, Satka, Longstaff)
Newcastle United Under-21s recorded an impressive 5-1 pre-season friendly victory at Darlington on Saturday.
Peter Beardsley's young Magpies eased to the comfortable win at the Northern Echo Arena thanks to goals from Haris Vuckic, Ivan Toney, Callum Roberts and substitutes Lubo Satka and Sean Longstaff.
Less than seven minutes had elapsed when Vuckic broke the deadlock for the visitors.
The Slovenian international was on hand to turn the ball home from a yard out, after Ivan Toney's deflected shot had struck the post and landed kindly at his feet.
Toney turned from provider to scorer soon after as United doubled their advantage - curling a 25-yard free-kick around the wall and into the bottom corner.
Newcastle were in complete control and Vuckic and Toney were both denied by Quakers goalkeeper Peter Jameson before goal number three arrived shortly before the interval.
A fine passing move involving Dan Barlaser, Gael Bigirimana, Toney and Vuckic, eventually saw the latter slip in Roberts and he rounded Jameson before netting from a tight angle, with deflections off the post and defender Liam Marrs.
Darlington pulled one back on the stroke of half-time when Liam Hardy rose well to glance home Lewis Nightingale's free-kick but it was to prove little more than a consolation as the Magpies netted twice more in the second period.
In the 50th minute, the hosts failed to clear their lines from a corner and substitute Satka was given the freedom of the six-yard box to plant a header into the bottom corner.
And with time ticking away another replacement, Longstaff, completed the scoring, when he worked a neat one-two inside the area and finished confidently from close range.
Newcastle United Under-21s (4-2-3-1): Nathan Harker; Michael Newberry (Stefan Broccoli 46), Callum Williams (Stuart Findlay 46), Curtis Good (Lubo Satka 46), Kyle Cameron (Macaulay Gillesphey 46); Gael Bigirimana (Dan Ward 58), Dan Barlaser (Sean Longstaff 58); Callum Roberts (Yasin Ben El Mhanni 46), Haris Vuckic (Luke Charman 58), Alex Gilliead (Jamie Holmes 58); Ivan Toney (Trialist 58)