The reserves fell to a disappointing defeat at Lyme Regis in a scrappy 3-2 loss. As with the prior week Cullompton were forced to chase the game, first from 1 nil down and then from 3-1 down with 9 men for 10 minutes, but this week were unable to grab a share of the points.
The damp and narrow pitch constrained good football for the first half hour, but Cullompton stretched the Lyme Regis back three, although struggling to create clear cut chances. In a sign of what was to come the Lyme Regis opportunities were created by individual errors and runners from midfield, which was exactly where their opening goal came from.
Cullompton battled back into it and fully deserved the equaliser just before half time, with Ryan Clarke’s perfectly judged free kick nestling in the top corner. With the momentum on their side against a physically tiring Lyme Regis, surely only one team could win this…
As with the prior week the momentum of the game turned on two quick goals, Lyme Regis making the most of individual errors to take a 3-1 lead. But as their coaching team correctly called ‘we don’t deserve this’, and the game still looked well in the balance with the majority of the second half to go.
With twenty minutes remaining it looked like Cullompton had a way back into the game, with a very strong handball appeal in the Lyme Regis area. Unfortunately the referee was in the wrong area and felt unable to make the decision. When he eventually caught up with the Cullompton defence on the half way line he responded to Riggo’s polite inquiry as to his whereabouts with sending him to the sin bin. Dan Horler failed to take the hint and soon followed him for a similar innocuous comment, leaving the 9 men of Cullompton with a challenging ten minutes.
Interestingly enough Cullompton controlled the game for those ten minutes and when Riggo returned to the pitch to turn his man and finish sharply from the edge of the box, Cullompton had 5 minutes to find the equaliser. It was not to be this week as Lyme Regis saw the game out with relative ease.
The focus is now on a tough game Tuesday evening at home against the University. With two home games coming up in the next week a couple of wins could quickly see the reserves back near the top of the table.
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