For our first competitive game of the 20/21 season we had to travel 40 + miles to face Hellenic League Easington Sports in the FA Cup.

Having had our opponents watched by Julian Robinson at the weekend the way Easington played hardly came as a surprise.

We started brightly enough with Wes Ireogu scrapping for the ball and Ollie Butler drifted past a couple of players before scuffing a shot wide.
Easington played some effective long passes to their speedy front 2 and we made reasonable progress down our right through Prince Nimoh,they put in a couple of decent crosses and we in turn had a couple of long range efforts.

On 17 mins when it looked that the storm might begin to blow itself out Easington took the lead when a free kick was passed into the channel between our full back and centre half and a cross shot crept into the net.

From then till the break we had probably our best patch without in all honesty creating any real opportunities . With the last kick of the half the game changed completely when another long ball caused mayhem and the lead was doubled with a well struck half volley.

The second period carried on in much the same vein and unfortunately we were never able to impose our game plan on our opponents. A number of substitutions were made but influenced the game only marginally.

As ever I can't fault the effort and it is probably true that our lack of game time showed. Sharpness and match fitness meant that we tended to play not at our own tempo, but got involved in a method of playing which doesn't suit us.

Thanks to those who came over to support and the best of luck to Easington in the next round.

Team.

Dave Saunders, Paulo Bagatti, Gareth Terblanche, Scott Bonner (Stephen Marshall) Harrison Cornick, Connor Blake, Prince Nimoh, Joe Chott, Clement Asante (Frankie Hercules) Ollie Butler, Wes Ireogu (Callum Shortt)

Subs not used: Jonathan Petts, Adam Murphy, Will Salmon

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