Saturday 1st October 2022

Pitching In Southern League Premier Division South 

Beaconsfield Town 0 Poole Town 2

Holloways Park – Att: 131 

Ram of the Match - Olly Sprague

Beaconsfield Town recorded their second home defeat of the week at the hands, quite literally at times, of a muscular well drilled Poole Town at Holloways Park on Saturday. 

The visitors delivered a master class performance in all the elements of professionalism including the ones that no one wants to see in the opposition but prizes in their own side. Aided by a referee who bought everything they were selling for over an hour after they took the lead after nine minutes. 

Wesley Fogden looked up, took a touch on a bouncing ball 35 yards from goal, and sent an arcing lobbed volley over the stranded Ravan Constable in the Beaconsfield goal. After which the visitor’s road to victory contained few obstacles.

Beaconsfield were by no means as poor as they had been in the second half against Harrow Borough on Monday night but Poole seldom had to be in top gear to contain The Rams. The home side were largely reduced to efforts from distance the best of which came from James Dobson, making his first start on the left, which drew a tumbling save from Luke Cairney in the Dolphins' goal.

 

On 27 minutes The Rams had Constable to thank for keeping them in the contest. Tony-James Lee went to ground dramatically after a coming together in the box with Luke Neville. Referee Mr Maryland pointed to the spot. The big striker recovered sufficiently to get up and take the spot kick himself but saw it turned around the post by Constable diving full length to his right. 

The Rams best chance came on the stroke of halftime when Toby Little and Nathan Minhas worked a quick free kick despite the best efforts of Poole Town and the ref. Little found space on the edge of the area and his low shot beat Cairney but was cleared by a covering defender under pressure from Dan Bradshaw. 

Half time 0-1 

Jacob Munting replaced Dan Bradshaw at the break and The Rams were forced into a second substitution barely five minutes later when Luke Neville seemed to get his standing foot stuck beneath him in the turf and rolled over on it in a painful fashion. Sam Togwell dropped into the back four and Gary Meakin sent on Eitel Goueth.

Beaconsfield were better and carried more threat but remained unconvincing in the final third, delaying the pass, taking an extra touch before getting a shot away. A side lacking in confidence. When Olly McCoy was introduced for the final half-hour his enthusiasm and energy seemed to offer hope that Beaconsfield’s territorial dominance would eventually bring an equaliser. 

Liam McDevitt was unlucky to see Cairney flap at a deep cross and get just enough on it to see it flash tantalisingly in front of him at the far post, McCoy shot into the side netting after good interplay down the left and Nathan Minhas, played through up the middle, shot tamely from the edge of the box as the central defenders fought to get back on terms.

For the most part Poole Town though, kept their shape, milked contact for pressure relieving freekicks and broke up the game as much as they could whilst living in the referee's ear constantly. 

Mr Maryland did his best to let the game flow but when one side doesn’t want it to and deploys every trick in the book to prevent it.To the point where Cairney even tells the crowd. “I’d rather win like this, I’m a shithouse ”. 

It ought to be easy enough to manage as a referee. Failing to deal effectively with the gamesmanship and game management just encourages it. It’s no good saying “It makes no difference” when a team consistently moves the ball at freekicks or steals 10 yards at a throw-in. If it made no difference or conferred no advantage, they wouldn’t do it. 

If you repeatedly tell someone who is clearly wasting time to, “get on with it”, and they ignore the instruction, you need to back it up with some kind of sanction. 

Here Cairney in particular, who had been dawdling all game responded to such urgings by taking even longer. 

By the end he was taking a minimum of 15 seconds over every restart, Mr Maryland repeatedly telling him to get on with it without any enforcement simply played into his hands. 

As the game wore on and Beaconsfield became more desperate it was always likely that they would prove vulnerable to the counter. So it was that Jack Dickson capped a 50 yard run with a shot into the roof of the net in time added on. 

Beaconsfield will now need to regroup quickly as Monday sees the visit of Hartley Wintney, also struggling to find the right blend this term.

Beaconsfield Town

Ravan Constable, Callum Webb, Oliver Sprague, Liam McDevitt, Luke Neville [Sub: Eitel Goueth 49], Sam Togwell, Toby little©, Aaron Minhas, Nathan Minhas, Dan Bradshaw [Sub: Jacob Munting 46 ] James Dobson [Sub: Olly McCoy 67]

Subs Not Used: Elliott Buchannan, Sam Granville

Poole Town 

Luke Cairney, Corby Moore, Jake Andrews, William Spetch [Declan Rose 75] , Jamie Whisken, Wesley Fogden, Tony-James Lee, Luke Pardoe, Adeoye Olumuyiwa, William Fletcher [Sub Marcus Daws 52], Jack Dickson.

Subs Not used; Luke Holmes, Harry Hutchinson, Harvey Woods

 

Referee - Charles Maryland,  Assistants -  Alistair Potter - Terry Dawkins.