Pitching In Southern League Premier Division South

18th February 2023

Poole Town 2 Beaconsfield Town 2

BlackGold Stadium  - Attendance 411

 

Ram of the Match – Sam Granville 

Poole Town and Beaconsfield Town produce a highly entertaining, committed, and enthralling ‘Game of two halves’ at the BlackGold Stadium on Saturday.

No quarter was asked or given on either side as both teams battled to a virtual standstill in pursuit of the win. 

Throw in a referee who lost the plot in the second half, totting up 10 yellow cards and Two reds in a game that didn’t have a bad tackle in it, and the #PayWhatYouWant crowd certainly got their monies worth. 

After half an hour you would have been forgiven for checking the home dressing room to see if Poole had come out. Beaconsfield were completely dominant and could, probably should have been Three goals to the good inside Half an hour.

After Five minutes Dan Bradshaw had presentable penalty claims ignored when Jake Andrews seemed to pull the wide man to the floor as he made a nearpost run at a Fifth minute corner. 

Elliott Buchanan opened the scoring on Nine minutes, after Dan Bradshaw was tackled on a burst into the box the richocet fell to Buchanan whose shot took enough of a nick off Corby Moore, as he closed to tackle, and was enough to wrong-foot Luke Cairney on its way into the net. 

Ten minutes later following a rare Poole Town attack Bradshaw took advantage of a defenders slip to drive into the Poole half and release Nathan Minhas 40 yards from goal with a free run at Cairney. As a recovering defender caught up Minhas chose an early shot, aiming to shape his finish past the advancing Cairney who deflected the effort away with an outstretched foot. The presence of the defender made his mind up but he will feel he should have buried the chance.

Such is the strikers lot. Like all the good ones Minhas didn’t dwell and in the 27th minute made it Two finishing a move which began on the right with Kyel Reid and was worked via, Dan Bradshaw, Sam Granville and Elliott Buchanan to Olly Sprague on the left wing who whipped in the inviting outswinging cross that Minhas met Ten yards out. Applying the finish, converting this much more difficult chance, with a stooping angled header. 

The Dolphins showed flickers of life as half time approached and created one excellent opportunity but Tobias Holmes shot straight at Ravan Constable.

Half Time 2-0 

Whatever they put in the halftime tea certainly did the trick for the Dolphins. The home side flew into The Rams with renewed energy and aggression but The visitors stood firm and even fashioned further opportunities to put the game away. Cairney Rode his luck as he somehow managed to evade Nathan Minhas as the pair closed on a Buchanan flick on 30 yards from goal.  

 Then Charlie Smith saw his effort from the edge of the box crash off the bar after another cross field passing move involving most of The Rams midfield.

That was about it from Beaconsfield as an attacking force. The remainder of the afternoon belonged to Poole Town and the referee who became increasingly petty, fussy, and card happy as the game progressed.

Poole got back into it with a firm close-range header from Will Spetch after good work from Tobias Holmes, who did well to hook a deep corner from beyond the far post back into the danger area where the defender was on hand to power the finish past Constable. 

Beaconsfield retained their shape dug in and settled for ten minutes before Mr. Ouchene made his first significant intervention. 

With Toby Little off the field, The big keeper delayed a goal kick and looked in the direction of the line to see if Little would be waved back on. Before preparing to take the kick. This was deemed to be time-wasting by the ref.

That's up to him as long as he’s consistent but I’d like to see him at Holloways Park sometime to see what we’ve witnessed on occasion this season if he thinks that was time-wasting worthy of a caution. 

Constable gave the decision some back chat. Apparently worthy of an immediate second yellow and a Red card? 

Safe to say only two people know what was said. Ravan has provided a fairly consistent account and as we left on Saturday Mr. Ouchene had thus far provided three different versions to three different inquiries. 

Constable let himself down after the red card with protracted petulant antics taking almost five minutes to leave the field. You can fully understand the frustration but his reaction did him little credit. 

Again if that's how Mr. Ouchene sees fit to deal with descent fine.

Just be consistent. At the other end, Cairney started after four minutes and launched a series of foul-mouth tirades at the linesman and the ref himself throughout. Drawing two reprimands and talking too’s but no cards?  

Constable not previously spoken to about time-wasting or anything else but somehow founds himself in the book twice in 15 seconds. 

Fortunately, On loan keeper, Kie Plumley was on the bench and Gary Meakin took the bold step of withdrawing holding midfielder Aaron Minhas leaving The Rams' attacking options open.

Virtually Plumleys first task was to pick the equaliser out of his net as another corner bounced around and was headed home by Jamie Whisken.

With Cameron Murray, hugely influential throughout the second half, and somehow not given sponsors man of the match?, now running the game, recycling possession, driving Poole forward, linking play and prompting and probing and with Jack Dickson rampaging down the right flank there was only going to be one winner.

Plumley made an excellent leap to tip over a dipping shot from Luke Holmes before plunging to his right to cover a low shot from the same player which skidded narrowly wide. 

The pressure mounted as Poole tried to bludgeon the Rams into surrender with a continuous bombardment. Togwell and Hawkins stood firm at the heart of the defence as the Rams clung on for dear life.  

The eight minutes of Constable-related added time were announced and the game grew even more frantic culminating in Mr Oushene making it all about him again. 

Charlie Smith and Tobias Holmes, who had a really good hard tussle all afternoon challenged for a ball in the right back area of the box. The full-backs strength shepherded the ball towards safety at which point Holmes threw himself to the floor.

Mr Ouchene pointed to the spot without hesitation. Of course he did. 

Spetch stepped up to seal the comeback and battered the ball straight down the middle unfortunately, for him and Poole, it was also straight onto the top of the bar. As the ball fell from space back into the danger area Henry Hawkins climbed highest under immense pressure to nod the ball to safety. 

That was pretty much that but there was just time as the teams left the field for Uchene to issue Gary Meakin a straight Red card after The Rams boss shared his pithy thoughts on the referee's performance. 

Next up The Rams entertain Hendon on Saturday at Holloways Park 3pm Kick Off. 

 

Beaconsfield Town :

Ravan Constable, Charlie Smith, Olly Sprague, Sam Togwell, Henry Hawkins, Sam Granville, Dan Bradshaw, Nathan Minhas, Aaron Minhas [Sub Kie Plumley 75], Elliott Buchanan [Sub Kai Allsop 86] Kyel Reid [Sub Toby Little 67]. 

Subs Not Used - Ben De Lacy-Turner, Myles Anderson.

Poole Town :

Luke Cairney, Harry Hutchinson, William Spetch, Jamie Whisken ©, Luke Holmes, Corby Moore, Jack Dickson, Jake Andrews, Tobias Holmes, Luke Pardoe.

Subs - Declan Rose, Adeoye Olumuylwa, William Butler, George Cowmeadow, Daniel Adu-Adjei

 

Referee -  Said Ouchene                            

Assistants - Luke Iles, Ali Hajiali.

All images ©Neale Blackburn 2023

Full game images