A quick glance at the current league table places Lymington Town about halfway down , but a closer look reveals a team in form, having only dropped five points from their six games played. Their position in the table is due to the fact that everyone else in the league around them has played four or five games more, so in reality they arrived at the Tatnam as a top three side, and that’s how they played this game.
Their new manager Jeremy Stagg was a tough and demanding player in his day and those attributes are now evident from his bench and in the way he runs this revitalised Lymington team. He screamed and cajoled his charges throughout this match to greater effort and they gave Poole their toughest test on the pitch thus far this season. They may have come for the draw and possibly a win on the break with nine defenders and one roaming forward but they swallowed up space and muscled Russell Cook and Steve Smith out of their six-yard box and denied their hosts all but a handful of shots on goal. It was quite a performance.
They were a little agricultural when it came to dealing with Gilly and Trefor and Pete Smith on the wings. And generally when they felt the need. Marc Pasucal had the enviable task of trying to quieten Gill and took to booting him in the shins and from behind. It wasn’t long before the referee Anton Beavis, who is not the most forceful of referees around, finally had to caution him, but then allowed two more hackings to escape a further caution before Stagg whipped the lad off on 56 minutes and relieve the ref of his inevitable but obviously dreaded task. The referee also bottled a cynical scything of Pete Smith on 65 minutes by Sam Dixon who simply took Peewee’s legs away from him as the copper rocket flew past him. Pete ended in a heap, almost digging a furrow as he fell to earth and Dixon got away with a caution when it could have easily qualified for excessive force and a straight red.
Tom elected to spread the starts around his squad for this one, and maybe the arrival of a scout from Farnborough (to look at Charlie!!!) influenced him to keep some of our pacier lads tucked away in the dugout, out of sight. Hubbard, Preston and Pete Smith all keeping their tops on with Lamin rested while Simon Browne, Ross Lloyd and Skelts got the nod.
Poole flew at the game in usual fashion but Lymington held them for almost the entire first half without allowing barely a shot of substance on their goal. When Poole did get a chance to score it was from a scamble from a corner on the half hour with so many bodies in the six yard area the ball could not find a path over the line despite several attempts at doing so. On 40 minutes, Steve Smith finally got a good shot off which was touched off target and away off the post and Taffy headed a ball over the bar to close out the half. At times the play was a little comical but effective from the visitors point of view.
Tom swept the changes in the second half, replacing the left wing of Browne and Trefor with Pete Smith and Preston and that side of the pitch started to open up. Trefor had been drifting too far inside throughout the half and despite solid backup from Browner, the lack of pace had been dealt with comfortably by the Limmo lads. Suddenly, they had the copper rocket and the Preston express to deal with and they really didn’t have an answer other than getting down right physical and the deciding goal came on 59 minutes. from this quarter. The duo lit up the left touchline with a blistering one two that allowed Preston a cracking shot from wide that greased across the goal beyond Williamson’s dive and tuck in at the far post, much to the visitors astonishment. Pure quality. Prior to that they had dealt with most crosses by just not allowing either Cook, Steve Smith or Taffy (who had a belter) the room to make runs in to get on the end of them. And continued to do so for the most of the rest of the game. Having been stung however, Dixon dealt with Smith in a shameful fashion and from then on the runs ceased. Poole kept up the pressure but the second goal could not be found and in the end had to settle for just a 1-0 scoreline to take the points. Lymington had there chances too and in all it was an entertaining match but one of a style that hasn’t been seen at the Tatnam for a couple of seasons.
