TWO EARLY GOALS KILL THE MILLERS AS FOLLANDS SCORE FOUR
Totton & Eling 0-4 Folland Sports
Totton welcomed Silvano Obeng and Liam Robinson into the team from AFC Totton on loan, while missing Dylan Gain and Joe Selby due to injuries and while Ryan Sanger and Jonny MacAuley were in the squad, they are fighting for match fitness at the moment.
In a game that got underway with some intense speed about it, T&E actually had the first sight at goal, when ex-Filipino international Matt Hartmann found Liam Robinson well centrally, the on loan AFC Totton man saw his shot blocked well be the visiting defence. That was to be Totton’s only sight of goal before finding themselves two nil down in quick time. First of all, a seemingly inconspicuous freekick was delivered into the area, the ball seemed to evade everyone and just bounce up infront of Eyres, causing him to fumble the ball and allow the lurking James THOMSON to stab home from 2 yards out.
Things quickly went from bad to worse for The Millers as the visitors were now buoyant and chasing down everything and giving Totton no room to manoeuvre, this highlighted, when R. Fear was robbed of the ball by Connor Rowe, who passed well for THOMSON who proceeded to curl a lovely, left-footed shot into the far corner of the net and leave Totton & Eling 2 goals down inside the opening 7 minutes of the game.
Although Totton tried to work their way back into the game, the visitors were almost dominant at this stage, but half chances for Kieran Nagle-Kelly and Liam Robinson, both failed to trouble Henry Newman in the Follands goal. Other than those, the only opportunity for The Millers of note, following some good hold up play by Obeng, fell to Danny Clarke, but the linesman had raised his flag in any case. Follands final chance of the half came when Rowe managed to get down the right channel and pull the ball back for the oncoming Matthew Casey who’s shot was blocked well by The Millers defence. HT 0-2
As the second half began, the game seemed to have dropped a gear in tempo, naturally, with Follands happy to hold their lead and attempt to add by picking Totton off and of course, The Millers trying to fight their way back into the game. Well there was nothing ado until the 55th minute when things got rather feisty between Tom Lycett and Clayd Roach – the incident unseen by myself due to the trees of bodies in the way, resulted in a yellow card for both men, while both benches wanted more for the respective opposition players. Lycett was promptly replaced in a wise decision from T&E boss Ben Hillman.
However, just a few minutes before the hour mark, the visitors would extend their lead and essentially put the game out of the reach of Totton, who could have no complaints.
The excellent James THOMSON completing his hat-trick after being put through on goal, with a clinical left footed finish, into the right hand corner of the net. As the half wore on and with the writing on the wall for T&E, they struggled to create any real chances of note for the remainder of the game bar one. Before that though, Bradley Johnson played a decent ball to find Josh Ball, who cut inside from the left wing and fired a right footed shot, not too far over the bar.
The games scoring was wrapped up fifteen minutes from time, when Follands were awarded a penalty which Clayd ROACH stepped up and converted emphatically beyond Eyres into the bottom left hand corner. Following this, the arrears nearly got worse for The Millers as Oli Eyres was forced into the save of the night as a ball moving in the air almost wrong footed him, he adjusted so well to be able to turn the ball onto the crossbar from a long range effort and to deny the visitors their fifth of the evening.
The Millers did have the final effort of the contest, Liam Robinson doing fantastically well to get away from his man and drill a shot at goal which Newman could only spill to sub Jonny MacAuley, who you’d put your house on to score usually, could only head over the crossbar, summing up the night for Ben Hillman and his men. FT 0-4
Millers Lineup: Eyres, L. Fear, R. Fear, Nagle-Kelly, Lomax ©, Lycett, Clarke, Hartmann, Obeng, Robinson, Burns.
Subs: Moss, Matthews, Beech, MacAuley, Sanger.
