Defeat is a cold lonely place, much like motorway's and train station's, driving back up the dark wet M3 I passed the Scvnthorpe United team coach on It's way back up North, they had just lost 1-0 at Southampton and were probably feeling much the same. As I listened to the football commentary on the radio the reporter said, "this team could play till midnight and they still wouldn't score". I knew exactly what he meant as I had just watched the Dolphins huff and Puff their way through ninety minutes of much the same, It was just one of those days I'm afraid that all teams go through.

Sidelined through injury were, Luke Whitley, Arron Skelton and although Taffy was on the bench he is still suffering a re-occurring injury. Such is our squad of versatile players we saw Stuart Brown in the middle of the back four with Rico, with Funnell starting at left back and Dan Cann up front with Ben Osborne.
The skillful Trefor, out last week injured came back into the middle. Steve Smith was on the bench and new man Robinson went straight into the middle.....Team as



Subs Taffy, Tong, Ayres, Sturgess, S Smith.

Poole started well and looked for a penalty appeal within the first few minutes, but the ref waved play on, we went at them with Culli ever present and Rico mastering things well at the back. Early on Culli had a header and a shot go close and we seemed to be spending more of our time in their half of the park. Until!! , on the 22nd minute Totton advanced and a great ball in to the strikers feet loitering near our penalty area saw the striker run at goal and shoot low, Harvell did his best to get down low with a dive and although he got a hand to it the ball rolled goal wards. Brown running in to clear the ball was an act of desperation, and unfortunately player and ball ended up in the back of the net to give Totton the lead.

From then on Totton's big side took control and Harvell saved a shot with Yelland also covering ground to put in a saving tackle. On the half hour Funnell won a free kick and his powerful shot bounced off the keeper to Culli, who shot just wide.
The final minutes of the first half saw another good ball played into the Poole Penalty area, and as Harvell and a Totton forward both went for the ball, the forward touched it just past Big Jason to make it 2-0.
H/T 0-2

TK changed things around for the second half, taking off Osborne for Sturgess and moving Funnell up front, with Sturgess at the back, and as the side settled Harvell was tested by Totton on a couple of occasions. We saw some good skill by Trefor but unfortunately the ball just wasn't going to drop for us and as Totton pressed forward we began to play deep.
The good thing about TK and the bench is, at all times if things aren't panning out right he will look to change things around, and with around 70 minutes left TK replaced Cann with Smith and Robinson with Taffy, they tried but it just wouldn't happen for us today and like I said earlier we could have played till midnight and not scored, but every team has one of those days and taking into account our injuries I think we have done quite well to date.
All credit to Totton they came as a solid unit and got a good result, but this is a marathon and as with all marathons there are times when you bide your time, tuck in behind in second place and wait your chance to pounce.
Taffy got red carded in the final minutes but on a high note Poole enjoyed a bumper crowd of 430.
F/T 0-2

Heads up, lets go again!!.
I'm already looking forward to next week.