AFC Totton
AFC Totton 2-5 Winchester City
Attendance – 155
The Stags were back at Testwood Stadium this evening for a Red Insure Cup 2nd Round tie against local side Winchester City. Totton made 5 changes to their starting lineup from Saturday’s game against Swindon Supermarine.
The tie began fairly evenly with both sides trying to gain control and unfortunately for Totton, it wasn’t long before the visitors did exactly that. It took 9 minutes to be precise. After Matt Benham was played into the area, he cracked a shot against the angle of the crossbar and post and the rebound fell to hotshot Warren BENTLEY who reacted first to give the The Citizens the lead. Totton were restricted to long range opportunities and half chances, Gosney shooting wide from nearer the halfway line following a hurried clearance from keeper Brad Snelling who would’ve made it back in time had the effort been on target anyway. Winchester doubled their lead in the 25th minute when Halam BASKER fought his way through 2 blue shirts and calmly finished off past the advancing Steve Mowthorpe. The Stags were then forced into a change with Tony Rolls going off to be replaced by debutant -duel signing, Dylan Knight. But with Winchester in control Totton struggled to get forward as often as they’d like to and the only other pieces of action in the first half came when Jamie Barron hit a free kick harmlessly over the bar. Aswell as that, Mowthorpe made a decent save at point blank range from Bentley as the City forward tried to add his 2nd of the evening. HT 0-2
The second half began with Winchester coming straight out of the traps and effectively killing the game off by adding a third. Substitute Adam Roberts got himself in a good position to pull back for BASKER who had a simple task to finish the move off. But full credit must go to Totton once again and they kept battling away to get back in the game with Taylor Edwards shooting a foot wide to begin with, then another Stags move saw Gosney flick a header on for Knight who tried to lob Snelling but there wasn’t enough height on the attempt. The Stags were eventually rewarded for their hard work just before the hour mark. After Knight was chasing down a through ball he collided with Snelling who had the same idea, the ball fell to EDWARDS who was in the right place at the right time to put the ball in the net. That gave Totton a glimmer of hope which turned into something more following a frantic few minutes of play. Firstly, Knight was bundled over in the penalty area and the referee pointed to the spot. The striker dusted himself down to take the spot kick, only to see it palmed away for a corner by Snelling. The resulting corner was taken by Rawkins and KNIGHT nodded the ball home at the back post with a looping header to not only score on his debut but make immediate amends having seen his penalty saved. However any Totton hopes of a comeback were stamped out just 5 minutes later as Benham again causing trouble got into position to pull a low cross back for – another City sub – Harrison FAY to hit home from close range. That put the game beyond doubt with just 12 minutes remaining. But to be sure Winchester added a fifth goal with 4 minutes left on the clock. Matt Benham picked up the ball on halfway and traveled to the edge of the area where he delivered a low cross in for Adam ROBERTS to fire home, low under Mowthorpe. FT 2-5
The Stags put up a good fight in the second half of this contest and nearly made something out of it but essentially the visitors had done the damage in the first half. Credit to the players, they didn’t stop going, in what was reminiscent of Saturday’s game against Swindon.
Stags Lineup: Mowthorpe, Hibberd (c), Rawkins, Alexander, Rolls*, Ferguson, Williams, Burgess**, Brewer, Edwards, Gosney***.
Subs: New**, Greene(GK), Diaper***, Knight*, Watts.
