walthamforest270905

Thursday 01st September 2005

Brickies lose their way in the Forest

Tuesday 26th September 2005	Southern League Division One East	Peter Pitts reporting
Waltham Forest	4	Ward 30, Duporte 51, Orilonshe 58 Cox 72
Sittingbourne	2	Spiller 83 Lovell 90 (pen)

Sittingbourne's team line up has been pretty constant during their four match unbeaten run but in this game they were missing captain James Campbell who had six stitches in a head injury sustained on Saturday against Dartford, and also missing was Lee Browning who was unavailable, writes Peter Pitts

Unfortunately this disruption seemed to affect the team as they succumbed to this defeat
against the Stags.

The Brickies started brightly and with just 3 minutes on the clock Mark Lovell had a shot blocked by Waltham Forest keeper Charlie Hasler. Then Hasler was in action again this time getting his fingertips to a shot from Bradley Spice. The Brickies pressure continued with a shot from Clint Gooding.

The stags first effort at goal came on 13 minutes when Steve Williams in the Brickies goal gathered a shot from Jermain Hughes.

On 19 minutes a far post cross was headed goalwards by Hughes forcing Williams to tip the ball over the bar for a corner. From the corner Darren Duporte headed just wide when well placed.

The Stags now had their tails up and were generally quicker to the ball than the Brickies winning the ball time and time again in midfield.

On 23 minutes a shot from a Stags corner crashed against Williams and the alarm bells weren't just ringing they were positively jumping up and down.

Seven minutes later a low cross made its way through a ruck of players in the Brickies area and Marc Ward stuck his foot out to shoot the ball past Williams to give the home side the lead.

Peter Taylor had a chance to equalise two minutes later but he blasted his shot over the bar.

The second half began with an effort from Leon Belton-McKenzie, which Williams did well to hold but on 51 minutes a run down the left ended in a cross field pass to Duporte who made no mistake in blasting the ball past Williams to double the Stags lead.

The referee had played an advantage to the Brickies before this goal which unfortunately back fired as the Stags regained possession so this was a somewhat luck goal for them.

Seven minutes later Waltham Forest were three up as another cross field pass found Afolabi Orilonishe who fired a terrific shot past Williams.

Sittingbourne then made all of their permitted three substitutions in one go with Mitchell Sherwood, Jon Neal and Richard Styles replacing Peter Taylor, Peter Davies and Dan Edwards. They then adopted a much more attacking line up and steadied the boat somewhat and on 64 minutes Neal had good effort well saved.

Six minutes later a Spice free kick went narrowly wide. The final nail in the coffin was struck on 72 minutes when Williams came rushing out of his goal and missed the ball, however, the ball was partially cleared but only as far as Alan Cox who fired home.

Two minutes later only a truly amazing block by Hasler stopped Styles from pulling a goal back as the Brickies man fired in a pile driver of a shot.

Sittingbourne were now having their best part of the game, Jon Neal having instilled some much needed urgency in attack and good interplay between Neal and Styles ended in Neal firing a shot just over the bar.

On 85 minutes the Brickies did pull a goal back when they won a free kick some 30 yards out. Ricky Spiller took the kick and Hasler was only able to palm the ball up and over his head and into the net.

The Brickies scored a second in injury time from a Mark Lovell penalty following a handball to make the score more respectable and Lovell had another effort just after that which sailed over the bar but time ran out and the Stags finished worthy winners.

Sittingbourne: Williams, Edwards (Styles 60), Dowley, Ainsworth, Davies (Sherwood 60), Marsh (capt), Spiller, Gooding, Lovell, Spice, Taylor (Neal 60).