Heath draw with Hallen in 3-minute thriller!

The Heath drew with Hallen on Weds night (2nd October) in a game that suddenly sprung into life in the 88th minute.
The line-up was tweaked from the game at Exmouth with Matt Huxley returning up front and Josh Williams moving to the bench, with Charlie Knight and Ross Moorhead being replaced in midfield by Lewis Saunders (making his debut after signing from Mangotsfield, welcome Lewis!) and Ash Kendall. Reece Rogers started on the right wing in place of Ben Allen and Harry Pruett started on the left wing in place of George Boon.
The Heath really struggled to get anything going in the first half and looked off that pace in what was a drab opening 45 minutes for both teams, although in the 45th minute Hallen took the lead when a free kick on the edge of the box was well delivered and confusion in the Heath defence resulted in a free header for a Hallen player. 0-1 at halftime.
The 2nd half saw a resurgent Heath side emerge and we controlled the game with the vast majority of possession but really struggled to create a clear chance. Hallen were equally lacking the ability to create anything in the final third, and despite the Heath having most of the possession we were restricted to long range efforts or moves breaking down when in promising positions.
The game suddenly sprung to life in the 88th minute, resulting in 5 minutes of end to end chaos that resulted in a further 3 goals. On 88 mins the Heath won the ball in midfield and found Josh Williams (on for the injured Enis Akgun) break down the left and deliver a good low cross to the onrushing Matt Huxley, who got down bravely in front of the Hallen keeper to knock the ball into the net from 6 yards – 1-1!
On 89 minutes Ash Kendall, who’d battled well in midfield all game, was sin-binned by the ref and a few seconds later Hallen broke through the Heath midfield and defence to take the lead 1-2. Disaster!
A fair bit of injury time was played and in the 93rd minute the Heath won a freekick around 35 yards out and fairly central. George Boon (on as sub for Harry Pruett) delivered a perfect deep free kick to the far right hand post where Ben Allen (on as sub for Reece Rogers) rose and buried a superb header into the far left hand corner – queue mass celebrations for a deserved point in a game we thought we’d thrown away! Well done lads!
So a point for the Heath and a fairly drab game rewarded those that stayed until the end with 5 minutes of absolute chaos!
The Heath are home again this Saturday (5th October) in a league game against Street, kick off at 3pm.