Stonehouse 0 vs 4 Sharpness

Sharpness made the short trip to league leaders Stonehouse still missing experienced players Tom Paterson and Gianni Diurno through injury and started the game with the oldest player being James Higgs at 26.
The Sharks started brightly and quickly pressed Stonehouse into making mistakes at the back. Within 5 minutes Matt Gardner had the ball in the net only for it to be ruled offside. This spurred Sharpness on and they continued to close down the Stonehouse midfield with Tom Frankham & Greg Penlington continuing there impressive form. Matt Gardner was causing all sorts of problems for Stonehouse and on 20 minutes the deadlock was broken. Scott Bennett broke into the box and picked out Gardner who turned it home from 6 yards out to make it 1-0. Sharpness doubled their lead 10 minutes later when Jack Higgs was sent clear down the left. He squared the ball to Ben John who managed to crash the ball home at the 2nd attempt to put the sharks two up at half time.
The second half started a far different affair with Stonehouse putting real pressure on the Sharpness back four but they held firm and soaked up some relentless pressure which was highlighted by 5 corners in 5 minutes to the home side. The best chance for Stonehouse fell to the league top goalscorer Liam Gale but his shot went just wide when the ball was slid into him at the far post.
It was against the run of play that Sharpness delivered the killer blow with that man Gardner again ripping the Stonehouse defence apart this time being upended by the Stonehouse keeper and Ben John dispatched the resulting penalty. Phil Orsborn rang the changes on 75 minutes with Dan Turner and Harry Aldrige replacing Jack Higgs and Scott Bennett who had a great game up to that point on his return to the team but cramp had set in. The two new additions then linked up within 5 minutes to put the icing on the cake. Aldridge was set free by Dan Turner to leave him one on one with the Stonehosue keeper and he took his chance early blasting the ball into the top corner to send the Sharpness players into wild celebrations. It was a well deserved victory and the team will need to perform at the same level again when Stonehouse visit Hamfields this Saturday in the County Cup kick off 2pm.

MOM- Ryan Collard