Post by Dave on Mar 4, 2023 10:02:29 GMT
Match Referee Keith Hawkins
Final Score Watts Blake & Bearne 3 East Allington 2
Match preview
Who doesn’t enjoy a good cup game? They are always competitive and often full of drama and excitement. The George Belli Cup is the South Devon League Premier Divisional cup. All Divisional cups are in group stage format this year with semi-finals and finals.
I have covered one WBB game this season when they were away to Chudleigh Athletic on the 24th September. They won that game by six goals to nil and looked good enough that day to win this season league title. After the game I was invited to attend one of their home games, so here I am sorry it has taken a while.
Report On That Game
davesworld.proboards.com/thread/1044/sdfl-chudleigh-athletic-24th-september
To my shame I am unable to find any match reports I have done for East Allington’s first team. I have covered their second team a few times however, the last one being on the 17th September when they drew two all away to Paignton Villa 2nd. At least I can now put that right today, but I do have a very distant memory of my son playing against the first team at their old ground back when I just watched matches on Saturdays when Torquay United were away.
How Are The Teams Doing In The League.
Watts Blake & Bearne are currently in forth place in the league table on twenty three points after playing a total of thirteen games. They have won seven of them, drawn two and lost four, scoring a total of thirty seven goals, conceded fifteen giving them a plus twenty two goal difference, It looks like ending up forth in the table this season is now the best WBB can hope for as the title race is now just between the three teams above them.
East Allington is in six place in the table on seventeen points from the thirteen games they have played so far. Winning five, drawing two and losing six. Scoring a total of twenty eight goals, but they have conceded thirty eight giving them a minus ten goal difference.
This is the second weekend on the trot East Allington has had to make the trip to Abbrook Park. Last Saturday in a league match that ended up as a one all draw with goals from Daniel Hagan for WBB and Finley Bullen for East Allington.
Due to last weekends result this is now a hard game to call, I might have made WBB slight favourites before, but I am sure East Allington will come with a plan to go one better than last week. Will WBB’s greater scoring threat and tighter defence see them through to the next round? May the best team win.
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Match Report
My own personal views are a cup competition should be a straight forward knockout format. The winning team goes through to the next round and the losing team are out of the cup. But this season each league is being divided into two groups with the top two teams in each group going into a semi-final. Meaning even if a team lost a cup game today, they could still reach the final.
Thankfully both teams today treated this game as a good old fashioned cup game; we were treated to goals, plenty of action and drama by the bucketful. It turned out to be a game of two halves in the end, WBB winning the first half with ease and East Allington winning the second half. The standard of play was excellent from both teams and the result could have gone either way in the end.
Match referee Keith Hawkins blew his whistle and got the game underway and to start of it was a pretty even affair. The first shot on goal was from Fin Bullen wearing the number nine East Allington shirt. He took his shot from just outside the WBB box but his effort went wide of the left hand post.
WBB took a very early lead in the match when a ball was fired into the East Allington box from the left hand side of the pitch. It fell kindly to Sam Stowell who smashed it into the back of the net.
Very soon afterwards WBB scored again, a ball was played down the left hand side and picked up by Antony Williams, he ran into the left hand side of the East Allington box and hit a good low shot across the keeper into the back of the net.
East Allington looked a bit shell shocked but were doing their best to get back into the game. Fin Bullen hit another fine shot from the edge of the WBB box that looked to be bending inside the right hand post, but ended up narrowly going past it.
WBB won a free kick that was fired into the box and then headed at goal. Sam Perry made a great save, but the ball dropped down to the feet of Antony Williams. Close in he took a shot that was blocked by the right hand post and went behind for a corner.
Fin Bullen then came so close to scoring what would have been the goal of the match. He hit the ball from over 30 yards out what hit the left hand post and went behind for a goal kick.
East Allington then won a corner that was fired high into the WBB box. It was headed at goal and cleared by the head of WBB defender. The ball dropped down to Andy King? Who scooped the ball over the crossbar.
Just before halftime WBB made it three goals to nil. The won a free kick out on the touch line on the right hand side. The ball was fired high into the East Allington box towards the back post. Beck Hannah got on the end of it and steered the ball into the back of the net.
That was it for the first half and while I felt East Allington had played well, I could not see a way back into the game for them. They clearly had other ideas and the manager’s halftime team talk clearly worked.
WBB started the second half as they finished the first one, but it was East Allington who got the next goal. A free kick out wide on the left was fired towards the back post and Ben Tapper slammed it into net.
They then got their second goal and WBB were not happy about it. Their keeper Jack Callum was laying on his goal line and the linesman flagged for the game to be stopped and some of the WBB players tried to make the referee aware. But the game was not stopped but the keeper did get back up just before a ball was fired into the WBB box from the right hand side. Fin Bullan hit a wonderful volley (the goal of the match for me) that gave the keeper no chance of making a save.
The game then got out of hand a bit when the ball was coming out of the East Allington box. A WBB player hacked down an East Allington player from behind. One of those handbag moments that looked like it really was going to get very nasty, but thankfully it fizzled out.
Shortly afterwards another two players had a fall out and as a result both had their names taken, I had lost count by then how many players had received a yellow card.
East Allington were now well on top as they looked for that third goal. Just inside the WBB box Fin Bullen turned well and hit a good shot that just went wide of the left hand post. Josef Sita hit a powerful shot from the edge of the WBB box that also went wide of the left hand post.
Fin Bullen hit another fine shot from the edge of the box that pulled out a great save from the WBB keeper. WBB were just holding on and doing all they could to stop East Allington scoring, often just belting the ball long as far as they could.
Despite all their best efforts East Allington ended up losing the game. It was a great game to watch for any neutral and if they play like they did in the second half in their next cup game, they could still make the semi- finals.
Many thanks to both managers for all your help with the team sheet today. Good luck to both clubs for the rest of the season both in the league and in the cup. I hope I got the East Allington players correct in my report, the numbers on the shirts are very hard to read
