Salisbury 3-2 Weymouth

Salisbury 3-2 Weymouth
Weymouth conceded an early lead to come up second best away at Salisbury in a close competitive match between two evenly matched sides. The result dropped Weymouth down to fifth with a mid-table finish to the season looking increasingly likely for the newly promoted side.
Worryingly for the Seasiders, Michael Westlake will yet again be out for the foreseeable future after aggravating an ankle injury from which he had only just returned. Westlake was forced to retire towards the end of the first half after colliding with a Salisbury forward in the Weymouth circle.
The match started well for Weymouth who had much of the early possession. The visitors soon won a penalty corner and a drag flick by Patrick May was stopped inside the left post by a Salisbury defender. Weymouth soon won another corner, however, and this time Chris Fry converted with a deflection from a Daniel Bowles pass. The Seasiders almost scored a second soon after. Skipper Simon Harvey was played in to go 3 on 2 in the Salisbury circle with Pat May to his left and Sam Drewitt high to his right. He picked out Drewitt on the base line but Drewitt was unable to get past the approaching goalkeeper.
The hosts then levelled through an unfortunate error by the Weymouth defence. A long ball was played into the Weymouth circle that failed to find a Salisbury forward. Keeper David Civil allowed the ball through, expecting it to go out for a defensive hit, but it instead rebounded off the face of the left post straight into the path of a forward for a tap in.
Shortly before Westlake’s injury Salisbury took the lead, this time with a brilliant bit of link up play attacking down the left. Some neat one-touch passing lead to a fine goal and no blame was attributable to the Weymouth defence.
For the final moments of the first half and the rest of the game, Harvey replaced Westlake at centre back meaning Weymouth were then without substitutions.
Much of the second half took place in the Weymouth half but despite the high percentage of Salisbury possession the hosts created very few clear cut chances. They did capitalise on one chance, however, again cutting through the defence with neat passing, but the space created that lead to the goal could be put down to disorganisation by the Seasiders.
The score remained at 3-1 for much of the second half with neither side looking like scoring, but within the last 10 or so minutes Weymouth began to up the pressure. They managed to grab a goal with minutes to go, again from the same penalty corner routine, however this time Fry did not manage to get a touch on the ball. His pressure instead caused a Salisbury defender to deflect in, thereby attributing the goal to Bowles from his intended assist. Weymouth could not find a further goal in the few remaining minutes and the score ended at 3-2 to the hosts.
This Saturday Weymouth host bottom of the league Gosport, whom they beat 5-2 on the road back in October. The loss of Westlake will cause the need for a reshuffle, but hopefully Gosport will not provide too much of a test and allow some experimentation with the line-up for the next few weeks.
Goals: Christopher Fry, Daniel Bowles
Man of the Match: Daniel Bowles