Andover Town0–1○Romsey Town

Andover Town came to this match still on a high from their dominating victory over Alton during the week and the team should be just as proud today. Even though the result did not provide any points the performance should be compared to previous encounters with Romsey Town which had led to a eighteen goal difference between the two clubs. The game today was an equal battle with the defeat coming from an anomaly in defence not a mis-match of skills. Andover fielded the same starting line-up as the mid-week game with a strong bench including both Jordan Ragguette and Shaquille Gwengwe.

Within the first minute both keepers had handled the ball with Andover having the best chance as George Higgins forced Charlie Philpott to save with his feet. Only seconds later Romsey won a free kick which was taken way too far forward according to the crowd. The protests continued even after Nathan Lunness had cleared the subsequent kick out for a Romsey corner and then neutralised the danger once again. Higgins was to have another chance when an Owen Trapnell throw-in found him on the edge of the penalty area. He turned to shoot but the resultant shot was weak and wide suggesting a miss-kick as it was not in keeping with his usual finishing skills. Romsey weren’t without their chances but they also seemed to be having difficulty finishing as one of their shots left the ground and could be seen flying across the car park. Another telling Trapnell throw-in found Nic Turpin who tried a semi overhead kick but with no success. Ben Emans demonstrated a very high work rate during his time on the pitch. He was clearly causing problems on his wing as he probably had a few meters more pace than his defender. However if any one player could be described as posing the most difficulties for the opposition it was probably the Romsey No. 10, Jack Odam who kept Trapnell occupied every time the away-side were on the attack. Just before Odam eventually beat the Andover defence he had been having a sweet ten minutes which Trapnell coped with. However finally Odam managed to lob a ball over Mark Keogh and Dave Tasker to score the only goal of the game. Trapnell appeared to be fulfilling a number of roles in the team today. Apart from the constant attention he needed to give Odam he was also providing telling crosses into the forwards and robust support to the midfield. The rest of the first half did not present with a good opportunity for either side to score. And the game seemed quite disjointed as an unprecedented number of balls appeared to be leaving the stadium for collection by the younger fans.

Half Time. Andover Town 0 - 1 Romsey Town

Andover started the second half with a renewed vigour. Almost straight after the whistle, Turpin had a shot which rebounded out from the underside of the bar to the surprised Higgins. He was unable to control this unexpected ball and ended up putting it over the bar. The home-side were looking good on the break but they were unable finish any of them with a goal. However it is clear that Andover are playing orders of magnitude better than at the beginning of the season and this shouldn’t be lost in the disappointment of any one result. The popular Shaquille Gwengwe was brought on with a new signing William Green with just over an hour of the game gone to inject an new approach to break down the Romsey defence. As usual Gwengwe could out-run his defenders but struggled to get into a good enough position for him to score one of his spectacular goals. Green had come on to replace Emans, and although a completely different player to Emans, he slotted straight into the task he was given on the right wing. Andover had a few good chances in the last quarter of the game, Green nearly scored on his debut and Lunness looked to have placed himself perfectly for a Josh Bertie corner but the move ended without a prize. Tasker made two incredible saves as the game was coming to a close. One with full stretch skywards and the other was a left handed lunge just as the game was entering the 90th minute.

Of the two teams Andover should be happier with the score as they have turned around previous crushing defeats at the feet of Romsey to a respectable result which could have gone either way. At this level of performance a position in the league around mid table would seem a fairer reflection of their play.