THURLOW NUNN LEAGUE PREMIER DIVISION
GORLESTON 2 HAVERHILL ROVERS 1
Haverhill will consider themselves unlucky not have come away from Gorleston with a point, the home side possibly considering themselves lucky to have remained with ten men on the pitch and to a deflection that gave them the winning goal on 86 minutes.
An excellent through ball in the 14th minute ended up giving the hosts a 1-0 lead, Joel Watts picking it up just the Haverhill side of the centre circle in the middle of the park, controlling it beautifully in his stride and, rushing in on goal, calmly side footed it from 15 yards out past goalkeeper Alex Archer and into the bottom left corner.
The lead lasted for nine minutes, Haverhill’s Ryan Weaver teeing up Riki Baker for a thunderous first time shot from 20 yards out; this was blocked and Blake Kicks was the only person still alive to the possibilities of it falling and he tucked it past ‘keeper George MacRae from 10 yards out at the near right upright.
A minute before the break play was halted after home midfielder Kyle Ingram trod on midfielder Will Gardner, but the incident was behind the referee’s back and he could not fully see the incident and only a yellow card was shown.
This was a game with two hungry teams playing at a high tempo with no-one having a bad game, but they neutralised each other for most of the second half and the only good chances the winning goal, came when three Gorleston shots in a goalmouth scramble were all blocked by Haverhill defenders on 81 minutes.
Five minutes later substitute Tom Markham gave his side all three points, making space for himself before shooting from the edge of the area, a large deflection off fully stretched defender Marcus Hunt looping the ball over Archer and leaving him helpless to stop it from finding the net despite his best efforts.
Three minutes into added time Haverhill could have equalised for a second time, Perry Moody’s deep free kick met by the head of Hunt, but MacRae did well to scramble back and fingertip the ball over his cross bar.
ROVERS: Archer, Moody, Kemp, Newnes (Stevenson, 89), Hunt, Farrant, Haines (Jebb, 89), Baker, Weaver, Kicks, Gardner
Sub not used: Shinn
Reported by Steven Esdale
