Match Report – Sandhurst (League)

East Sussex Football League
Division 3

Sandhurst 0-2 South Coast Athletico

Saturday 15th December 2018
Bexhill College

Chopbacks dig deep to secure victory

The penultimate to the festive break saw the Chopbacks travel to Sandhurst.

The weather was cold and wet but the pitch held out.

The first half was a quiet affair with little real chances as both teams cancelled the other out.

The biggest coming to the home team who fired a distance shot just wide of Ben Tate’s left hand post in the dying minutes.

The second half continued in much the same way until Sandhurst broke Coast’s defence, beating the Cat needing only a tap in at the far right post, somehow Georgie McDonagh came from nowhere with a lunging tackle to clear the ball from being put across the line.

The stalemate continued until the 63rd minute when Luke Darvill played a through ball over the top of Sandhurst defence onto an on rushing Connor Easton, who slotted past the keeper to give the Chopbacks the lead.

Drama followed as a free kick was awarded to Sandhurst and the decision was questioned resulting in a sin bin for Luke Darvill.

South Coasts management dropped Lee Finnigan into a central defensive midfield position to counter and the game remained close.

For the second time of the day, the home team fought through the Chopbacks defence, beat Ben Tate and by some miracle, the days defensive hero and man of the match last time out, Georgie McDonagh again lunged in to prevent the open goal being breached.

That was to be the last meaningful attack on Coasts goal.

Minutes later a throw in was awarded against Sandhurst and one of their players told the referee exactly what he thought of the decision, the referee didn’t offer caution let alone sin bin so manager Neil Sutcliffe asked for clarification to why the offence was not deemed worthy of a sin bin.

The lack of consistency from the referee was evident the entire game with South Coast only being awarded two decisions across the 90 minutes.

It made no difference to the games outcome, as 2 minutes from time, when Chopback goalkeeper Ben Tate fired out a perfect goal kick right over everyone into the gambling Connor Easton who fended off his marker, chipped the keeper and sealed the points!

The game ended with another win for the Coast boys.

After the game, Manager Neil Sutcliffe said:

“this was probably the toughest game of our season so far, the conditions were challenging, Sandhurst were very strong and considering the other elements of the game, we were literally playing against 12 men not the usual 11”