Seasiders foiled as Havant strike late

WEYMOUTH 3

HAVANT III 3

WEYMOUTH’S hopes of returning to the top of the table were dashed after Havant hit a last-minute equaliser.

The hosts had been looking to bounce back from their first loss of the season the previous week against Portsmouth University.

The game started as a cagey affair and the visitors looked to be in the ascendancy but solid defending from the centre-back pairing of Roly Gill and Giles Broadhead kept them at bay.

The deadlock was broken when Weymouth turned over possession from a Havant attack, and broke quickly up the right-hand side, in the form Patrick May who crossed the ball to Florian Ziegenbalg at the back post who calmly flicked the ball into the roof of the net.

The lead was quickly doubled from another counter-attack, this time from a Havant short corner.

Daniel Bowles broke and quickly swept Weymouth forward on the counter, seconds later the ball landed at the feet of May and he rifled the ball into the corner of the net as the Seasiders went into half-time with a fairly comfortable 2-0 lead.

The second half started with Havant pressing the home defence harder. Weymouth soaked up this pressure for the first few minutes and a created their own attacks, which were largely fruitless.

The turning point came five minutes into the second half with May receiving a 10-minute suspension for the offence of not retreating from a free hit and playing the ball on the ground.

Immediately goalkeeper David Civil gifted the visitors a goal with a poor step over attempt.

The visitors sensed they could get something out of the game and piled on the pressure while the home team were a man light.

The equaliser came from a well-rehearsed short-corner routine, which was switched the left side and hit into the bottom corner with nothing the defending team could do.

This started a frantic few minutes in which both teams created chances to score but neither could compose themselves to take the lead.

The deadlock was broken by May after returning from his suspension. He received a pin-point aerial pass from Bowles and knocked it past a defender and nailed the ball into the top corner, all within 10 seconds.

Weymouth should have pressed home their advantage with some spectacular runs from box to box from midfield dynamo Matt Underhill drawing fouls from the tired Havant defenders, which saw the away team receive a green card suspension.

Not wanting to be outdone, Weymouth got themselves a couple of quick suspensions for Simon Harvey and Giles Broadhead to push unwanted the man advantage back to Havant.

This clearly was not in the Havant playbook to be left with a man advantage, so they promptly received another two green card suspensions, to leave the heaving suspension area watching an eight versus nine match for a period.

Havant scored their last-minute equaliser from a crashed ball, which found their striker in the D, Civil managed to save his first shot, but none of the Weymouth defence could clear the ball as the Havant striker bundled the ball over the line.

MOM: Matt Underhill.