Ten-men Dockers defeated after frantic start

Newhaven 2 Midhurst and Easebourne 3, SCFL Premier Division Match #10

Newhaven’s season hit something of a strange milestone yesterday afternoon, as centre midfielder Sam Geard became the 40th different player to don a first-team Dockers shirt this season. In case you need reminding, it’s not even the end of September yet!

It’s fair to say that no-one could have foreseen this start to the season coming, with injuries really threatening to derail our season already.

The mere thought of being able to field the same team twice in a row seems little more than a pipe dream right now and, unfortunately, the unfamiliarity of the players is unsurprisingly being taken advantage of by too many teams who, pre-season, we probably would have been expecting to beat.

That said, the Dockers couldn’t have asked for a better start than the one they got against Midhurst.

With barely two-minutes on the clock, the patched-up hosts took the lead. Tom Vickers’ fizzed in a cross from the left which was prodded home by Lee Robinson. The striker’s tenth goal of the season as he closes in on an astonishing 500 career goals for Newhaven.

However, all too often this season, the Dockers have failed to build on a promising start by allowing their opponents a quick route back into the game.

Yet even with this in mind, few people at Fort Road could have been expecting the hosts to be trailing before the game hit the ten-minute mark.

But that’s exactly what happened, as two goals that could oh-so-easily have been avoided completely turned the game on its head in the blink of an eye.

Thankfully, in what was a quite frankly barmy opening 15 minutes, it was then Newhaven’s turn to hit-back immediately, as Luke Donaldson’s first-time reverse pass released Harry Reed, and the right back made no mistake in rifling the ball into the far corner. 

2-2 with 12 minutes played!

The Dockers could then have easily retaken the lead moments later when Bailie Rogers was found by a beautifully lofted ball from Vickers, but he could only head wide when well-placed.

After that flurry of early goals, the game settled down with both sides seemingly remembering that defending is as important a part of the game as attacking.

It probably goes without saying that we couldn’t make it through an entire half without picking up an injury, mind you, as Regan Clarke-Salter hobbled off just before the half-hour mark to be replaced by Ash Wadhams.   

That said, with half-time approaching, Robinson had a couple of opportunities to give the Dockers a half-time lead; one of which was well saved, the other of which went wide.

The opening minutes of the second-half was the exact opposite of the entertainment of the first, with neither side really creating anything of note. Newhaven were seeing plenty of the ball, but failing to cause the Midhurst backline any real issues.

The game's turning point undoubtedly came with 25 minutes remaining. Harry Reed won the ball in the middle, but caught the Midhurst player high on the thigh in an untidy-looking follow through. My thoughts immediately went to Tuesday night, when an Eastbourne United player was booked for a similar challenge on Bailie Rogers. On this occasion, though, a red was shown, leaving the Dockers down to ten men. And, even more annoyingly, one of our few fit players now facing a three-game ban. It’s the lack of consistency that grates, it really is.

Playing with a man more, Midhurst started to control possession, albeit without causing the Newhaven defence any major issues.

Disappointingly for the Dockers, when what turned out to be the winning goal ultimately arrived 15-minutes from time, it wasn’t through the visitors taking advantage of their extra man, it was from a set-piece, with Newhaven once again switching off and allowing their opponents an all-too easy goal.

Trailing once again, the ten-men Dockers struggled to respond.

With just under five-minutes remaining, Midhurst should have made the game safe when one of their players burst through only to pull his effort wastefully wide.

Having failed to kill-off the game, Midhurst were then almost made to pay when in injury time Robinson did brilliantly to worm his way into the area and get a powerful shot away which was well saved by the visiting custodian. Needless to say, the rebound fell kindly to a Midhurst defender to complete the clearance.

 So it was another disappointing loss for the Dockers, although given the aforementioned high turnover of players (through necessity) it would be unreasonable to be expecting anything more. The fact we’ve stayed competitive in the opening matches – with the Horsham YMCA FA Cup game the only one that we’ve not really been in up until the end – is something of a miracle. Although merely staying competitive doesn’t gain you any points, which is what we really need.

For now, though, all we can do is stick together, and hope that when players do start to return from injury, we’re still close enough to the play-offs to be able to take advantage of this.

Unfortunately, there’s no recovery time for the currently few uninjured players, either, as we face another midweek away trip on Tuesday with a visit to Roffey, before hosting Pagham next Saturday (both in the league).

Your support at either game or, even better, both, would be much appreciated.

Come On You Dockers!

My man of the match (aka, the controversial part): Lee Robinson. It’s hard not to feel sympathy for Robbo at the moment. As ever, his work rate yesterday afternoon was through the roof and he looked a real threat every time he received the ball in the right areas.