Holmes on fire as Hugh’s unsettle New
New’s Tom Corby (left) reaches for the ball under pressure from Matt Sale
St Hugh’s.................1 New........................0 In the space of one dull and uninspiring encounter, New loosened their grip on second place in the Premier Division and are now looking ever less likely to catch leaders Worcester. They were unable to match a tenacious and skilful St Hugh’s side in Summertown last week, and their meek showing made one wonder how they have managed to keep up with Worcester before now. Arriving as early as 22 minutes, it only took a sweetly-struck penalty from Simon Goddard to suppress all that New had to offer.
Up until then, the visitors had enjoyed the better of the opening exchanges. Tom Clare wove a path through St Hugh’s defence to fire wide on 15 minutes, and moments later drew a heroic covering intervention from Will Hardyment when clean through on goal. However, Goddard was clumsily felled by centre-back Scott Hartman marginally inside the penalty area just minutes later. After brushing himself down, the dynamic midfielder ruffled the bottom left-hand corner of the net.
New keeper Tom Fletcher could only gaze back over his shoulder in frustration as the spot-kick sent him the wrong way. New may not have been as efficient and patient as their hosts, but their attempts to claw their way back into contention were certainly valiant. Whenever New managed to manoeuvre a ball forward towards the box, Clare was at the zenith of whatever they had to show for themselves.
Striking partner Dave Frenk and centre-back Ben Thomas also registered chances, but could not find a way past the home rearguard nor keeper Tobias Warnecke. In fact St Hugh’s were terrific in defence. James Bath and Alex Lesley proved veritable buttresses supporting the foundation of their back line, with full-backs Hardyment and Leo Pryah more than capable of instigating a break-away in an instant.
New did their best to penetrate, but even their best efforts were either dispatched harmlessly wide or met by the wall of yellow that was the home defence. The second half hummed along with few more incidents of major note, although New will count themselves unfortunate not to have levelled the match on 65 minutes. Left-back Joe Twomey rose majestically above a pack of players in the box and headed powerfully goalwards, only to see his effort hacked off the line by Lesley.
Fellow centre-back Bath was then at the focus of controversy, this time being caught in possession by substitute Mike Holmes with ten minutes remaining. Winning the ball 30 yards from goal, he cleverly shifted on to his favoured foot and came to close to successfully chipping the keeper from ambitious range. Then, with Pryah forced off the pitch following a gruelling collision with keeper Fletcher, St Hugh’s found themselves down to ten men.
Forming a makeshift 4-3-2, anxiety radiated from both camps. New fought bravely to make the extra man count in a pledge to rescue a point, but the visitors found shot-stopper Warnecke in fine form as the match folded into a hotly contested conclusion. Captain Daniel Bagshaw’s cross from the by-line forced a delicate tip over, while a fierce header from left-winger James Sutton was shut out by an agile goal-line save.
1-0 was how it remained, however, and New may well rue this slip up by the end of the season.
23rd Feb 2006