Anvils undone by YM

After six weeks away it was good to see the green green grass of home again or so we thought, the surface looked reasonable, the weather was bitterly cold but at least it was dry, more fresh faces in the team, could this be the turning point of our season one wondered?

The first five minutes were fairly quiet as both teams probed for an early opening, the visitors being the first to open up the game when a misplaced pass from debutant Martin Mutungi fell to Dave Brown to cut inside and fire past debutant keeper Andy Greaves. 0-1 YM.

On 12 mins ex Anvil duo the Sullivan’s combined to earn the first corner of the match, come 15 and from another corner Brown blazed well wide, followed on 22 by the same player whom this time could only find keeper Greaves.

On 24 Anvils Ciaran Steers out right put in a determined break down the right, finishing with a fierce cross across the face of goal, which went begging. Just after Sam Cane then went into the officials notebook for the first yellow, other then a Geo Wallis attempt on goal it remained rather quiet on the Anvil attacking front, though Jeffery Mahadoo tried his luck from 30 yds which was safely gathered by YM keeper Mark Fox.

For the rest of the half it was all YM with next fullback Dan Evans on a run but firing wide, the experienced Dean Carden whom with Nick and Dan Sullivan were working a neat little triangle at times, then set up the outstanding Ant Hibbert to fire across the face, as the ending of the half neared, but not before Josh Brown had his shot brilliantly turned away by keeper Greaves to keep the deficit down to just a single goal. HT 0-1 YM.

Second half started brightly for the Anvils giving rise to an interesting half, but controversy was just round the corner with Sam Cane and keeper Mark Fox going for the same ball resulting in Fox no doubt making the most of it, and Cane controversially receiving another yellow followed by the red and off, hence ten men Anvils for the final 40, which in itself was no easy task.

On the hour mark Nick Sullivan then set up Brown but his shot could not beat the outstanding Greaves, and so it went on with YM getting well on top with Luke Gedling having his shot pushed over by Greaves, followed by keeping out sub Taylor Smiths shot, it was just a question of time before the inevitable happened when on 73 Dan Sullivan broke through to fire past the diving Greaves to put YM two clear. 0-2 YM

Down to ten men the Anvils then threw on all three subs in an attempt to salvage something from the game, but to no avail as YM continued to press and on 84 Nick Sullivan’s pace opened up the Anvil defence and with his first shot blocked managed to collect the rebound and tuck the ball away. 0-3 YM.

The final rites were then completed minutes later with sub Taylor Smith driving home the final nail. FT 0-4 YM.

Crawley Down manager Paul Cooper said after the game “ A frustrating afternoon. Having gone into the fixture although still missing 5 or 6 we for the first time since I have been here had a strong squad. We lost Leyton Regan to a freak injury on the Thursday in the run up to the game and then Harry Lowe on the Friday morning, which already added to the unavailable Grant Rigler, Mark Barnard(injured), Josh Alcock(injured) and Sam Jordan(unavailable). The mistake for the first goal was one of those where you have to forget it and get on with things and not ponder as it was out of the blue and unlike Martin.The players kept themselves in the game with it being 0-1 at HT, but the sending off after half time killed us and literally was the final nail in the game. We then went on the back foot and YM were able to exploit the extra space and it was an impossible task. The back 5 were superb for the final 40mins as they literally had to deal with continual pressure as Horsham took the game to us and made the most of the extra man.

The football gods really aren’t smiling on us for some reason right now and we just need a little bit of luck to turn things rounds. The players are all working hard in training and on match days, but we need that little slice of luck that is going to carve an opportunity out for us or a win and allow the confidence to come through and us kick on. 9 of the 14 players in todays squad are new players that over the past 2 months have been brought in, so there have been a number of changes in the squad since arriving but I do feel we have the right mix now, and it’s just a case of the lads now coming through this transition phase which does take time and start turning the negatives into positives”

Team: Andy Greaves, Blair Cooney, Hass Shurmani (Sonny Barton), James Day, Owen Roberts, Alex Reid (Lee Thomas), Ciaran Steers, Sam Cane, Jeffery Mahadoo, George Wallis, Martin Mutungi (Ryan Taylor).