Seaton Town 4 Cullompton Reserves 0
A rusty Cullompton side went a third game without scoring as they were comfortably beaten by Division 3 Seaton, dropping out of the Bill Slee Cup at the last 16 stage.
Having not played for two weeks this extended to two weeks and five minutes as a slow start left Cullompton 1-0 down almost immediately. In response Cullompton picked up the pace, possibly all the way up to a slow trot, as the half continued. This led to their best spell after around half an hour, with Dave Hawes providing a particular threat down the right when he wasn’t being thrown theatrically over the pitch side fence (possibly having watched too much wrestling at Crealy during half term). The best chance probably of this period fell to Matthew Turner who hit wide after the ball hit his non-striking ball just as he made contact, while a couple of free kicks in dangerous positions failed to lead to a goal.
It wasn’t all one way traffic with Seaton’s movement in the final third continuing to cause problems and Ricardo marking his return to the team with one excellent save and a couple of very good ones. The score remained one nil at half time and with the wind on their backs Cullompton were well positioned going into the second half.
The half time gameplan of keeping it tight for the first 5 minutes was a good one, although possibly offset by the subconscious thought that an equaliser would mean extra time, and Cullompton duly started the second half like the first and conceded a goal in the first five minutes.
This provoked a response from Tobin who decided to play like Messi for the next ten minutes – his dribble past four players within a space which was barely big enough to contain four players drew an audible gasp from the Seaton crowd. Another sharp turn, momentary pause and perfectly timed ball provided a good chance to Oliver Simkin who was thwarted by the Seaton keeper dashing out at an impressive pace, particularly when allowing for his size.
While Cullompton had the odd half chance they looked less likely to score as the half wore on and a third goal was no great surprise, the fourth even less. The score line seemed slightly unfair but over the 90 minutes Seaton were clearly the better team and all the best to them in the quarter final.
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