Tring Athletic Ressies lost their first league game since Oct 20th (when we lost ironically in a 4-1 defeat to Abbey Rangers - perhaps history can repeat itself)

After a 2 hours on the M25 and subject to exceptionally warm conditions and on a 3G pitch we eventually succumbed to what was as good a side as we've ever played in this League.

Although missing arguably 3/4 starters, for the first 35 mins without creating too many opportunities we held out fairly comfortably with the back 3 of Chris Clark, Matt Stacey & Harrison Cornick consistently catching the opposition offside by keeping a well organised high line. We had a chance to take the lead after 15 minutes when a strike from Casey O'Gorman after a Chris Clark free kick was well saved by the home keeper.

Sutton then began to play diagonal passes to try to exploit the spaces out wide but again apart from on one occasion when keeper David Saunders dealt with the situation we looked like we might get to half time, exhausted but with a clean sheet. We lost Will Foley after 25 mins but Chris Clark stepped into midfield and gave a MOM performance while Will Mullarkey stepped into the back 3.

With 35 mins gone a poor decision on the edge of their area resulted in a quick break and despite our best efforts a cross fizzed into our area 4 passes later resulted in an o.g. to give our opponents the lead.

We changed to 4-4-2 at half time, unfortunately sacrificing Frankie Hercules who has worked hard, moving Alex Holmes to left back where he was very steady and bringing Ollie Ruttle on up front.

This served its purpose and some tidy play and a cross resulted in a missed opportunity and then we failed to hit the target when a ball from the right rebounded to Ollie Ruttle.

Disaster struck when failure to demand the ball from our own throw resulted in a pen to Sutton, it's pointless mentioning the people involved who hopefully know better and at the end of the day were part of a squad who worked hard for the entire 90 mins.

As we tired and with a weaker bench than usual we had a mountain to climb and as Sutton had more and more possession we were in danger of heading for a genuinely poor result.

As ever these lads pulled together and limited our opponents to 2 goals, one of which looked offside and then rallied and got a well, deserved goal when a tidy pass by the hard working Clem Asante allowed Ollie Ruttle to lob their keeper from the edge of the area with his LEFT foot.

Casey O'Gormam and Euan Anderson worked hard out wide and we welcomed Connor Blake back in midfield where although lacking match fitness he showed his usual composure and Alex Holmes played his part up front in the opening period before doing a decent job at left back in the second half.

On Tuesday we get back into action at home in the Wycombe Cup and travel to Bracknell Town in the League and we are still top of the table.

Team: D.Saunders, C.Clark, M.Stacey, H.Cornick (W.Gibson ) 80 mins,
C.O.Gorman( J.Chott) 80 mins, C.Blake, W.Foley (W.Mullarkey) 35 mins inj. F.Hercules (O.Ruttle ) 45 1 goal 85 mins, E.Anderson (S.Marian) 65 mins. C.Asante. A.Holmes.

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