AFC Totton
STAGS FRUSTRATED BY WANTAGE
AFC Totton 2-2 Wantage Town
The Stags entertained Wantage for their first home game of the 2015/16 season. Marc Diaper was still unavailable through injury and James Roden also picked up and injury and also missed out, as Chris Manning took his place in the starting XI.
The game got off to a fairly even start, that was until the 6th minute, when he was released down the left hand side and managed to pull back into the path of 3 or 4 oncoming Stags players and it was Nick WATTS who was in the right place at the right time to side foot into the net beyond ‘Freds Keeper Gareth Tucker. It looked as though The Stags had adopted control of the game, but Wantage were in no mood to be behind in the game and set about getting an equalizer immediately. Firstly an attack was broken up with Willams making a slide tackle and Dave Allen clearing his lines. Then a real warning came for The Stags as Ben Whitehead found himself in a one on one situation, but Steve Mowthorpe was quick off his line to make a good stop. It proved to be a warning that Totton didn’t heed as just 11 minutes after the opener, Wantage were level. Jake Johns and Nick Thorne combined well to set up WHITEHEAD who fired into the corner from the edge of the area.
The visitors weren’t just happy to be level though and 5 minutes later, they got themselves in front. With 23 minutes gone, Wantage took the lead. A Freekick was given away and Jake Johns delivered the ball into the area which was met by the unattended Carl EVANS who headed in at the far post. To be fair, Wantage had responded really well to falling behind and really attempted to take the game to Totton.
However on the half hour mark, The Stags were level again. Some good work by Craig Feeney saw him get free of his man and allow him to break away and feed the ball to Watts, who quickly slipped in Mike GOSNEY between 2 defenders and the Totton talisman placed the ball ball beyond Tucker, to equalize. As half time approached, Totton were perhaps the better side and may have been unlucky not to have gone into the break a goal up. Gosney advanced to the byline and tried to cut back for Sherborne and Feeney who were both arriving, but the ball evaded everybody and ended up with Watts on the opposite flank. He did exactly the same thing and the ball again found it’s way through the area with out a definitive touch towards goal. It seemed to be a little taster of how the evening panned out for The Stags in the way of frustration as on another day, the chance may well have been buried. HT 2-2
5 minutes after the break, The Stags were almost gifted a goal as a poor clearance from Tucker was nearly turned straight back into his goal by Sherborne, but the ball came off a Wantage body for a corner, which ended up being cleared away. Moments later, Dave Allen released Feeney with a good ball, his shot was saved at the near post by Tucker, from what was a tight angle. Just after the hour mark, Wantage had the ball in the net, but it was adjudged to have been offside for the linesman and was another warning for The Stags to stay sharp.
As the half went on and both sides tired, chances started becoming fewer and farther between. With 68 minutes on the clock, Gosney tried and audacious chip from outside the area in an attempt to spark some quality into the game, but the ball floated harmlessly over as it started to become apparent that it wasn’t going to be The Stags evening. This was almost confirmed to be true with 15 minutes remaining as the visitors had the ball in the net for a 2nd time, but again the linesman had come to Totton’s rescue and flagged for offside.
The last real chunk of action came 10 minutes from time as Wantage sub Stephen Davis was allowed the room to cut inside and fire a shot from around 20 yards out, but fortunately it went about a foot wide of Mowthorpe’s left hand post. The game then petered out as Wantage stood strong and made it difficult for Totton to create any real opportunities to win the game and perhaps, more disappointingly, it was The Freds who looked most likely to pinch the points. FT 2-2
In truth, Wantage deserve credit for their performance this evening and will no doubt be the happier side. But having said that, if Totton aren’t firing on all cylinders just yet and are still picking up points, that should be viewed as a positive, bearing in mind how early into the season we are. Again, in a similar vein to Saturday’s defeat at Taunton, there are still a few positives for Steve Hollick and his team to take into the Shortwood game but there are still a few things to work on aswell.
Attendance – 250
Stags Lineup: Mowthorpe, Manning, Hibberd (c), *Williams, Rolls, Dempsey, Watts, Allen, Feeney, *Sherborne, Gosney.
Subs: Attrill, *Burgess, *Lilley, Edwards, Greene.
(*subbed on/off)
