Saturday 9th November 2024
Venue: Westleigh Park
Attendance: 41
New Milton Town extended their unbeaten Wessex League run to ten games with a 2-0 win over Clanfield at Westleigh Park. Goals from Barney Stone and Noel McCarthy-Gardiner did the trick, whilst Elliott Pearce-Eavis made his first start since rejoining the club on Thursday.
The game took a while to burst into life, with the only 'action' of any kind in the first 20 minutes coming via a pop-shot comfortably saved by Ollie Bull and Ollie Mayo firing the ball into the car park from distance.
Barney Stone then made the breakthrough. A high cross from deep looked to be sailing into goalkeeper Aaron Pullin's hands, but, under pressure from Brad Snelling, saw the ball drop for Barney Stone, who quickly rolled the ball to the side and fired into the roof of the net.
Despite the lack of action, it was a deserved lead for The Brickmakers.
The only other note of action during the first half was Callum McHale's bright run down the left-hand side, evading two players before narrowly firing wide of the target. Barney Stone was also shown a yellow card although it appeared that it was he who was the one fouled.
It would be the second half that provided much of the action. Ollie Bull was forced into an early save via a header from point-blank range, but from that moment forward, it was only the away side that looked like scoring.
On 55 minutes, Brad Snelling received the ball on the left-side edge of the box. He held off one before dribbling past two and then the goalkeeper. He only needed to tap the ball into an empty net, but the Clanfied no.5 came from nowhere to save his team with an incredibly last-ditch tackle.
Two minutes later, Barney Stone spurned the next opportunity. The Clanfield goalkeeper left his area and mistimed his kick, leaving Barney to race away with a bouncing ball. His left foot shot under pressure came back off the face of the post before being cleared.
Cameron MacMonagle and Cameron Smith entered the game - replacing the excellent Toby Colmer and Ollie Mayo - as Matt Maybury made his first changes. The extra energy brought on only strengthened New Milton's grip on the game.
Jack Foden headed wide from Louis Moore's corner kick, and then the lead was doubled beautifully. A string of passes were knitted together with 15 minutes to play, which led to Noel McCarthy-Gardiner taking a touch to control and another to powerfully half-volley the ball through the goalkeeper's hands and into the net.
Heath Thornton would replace the second goalscorer a few minutes later as the game faded. Neither side had chances in the final ten minutes, and the referee's whistle was music to the ears of those who had made the trip.
Matt Maybury gave his thoughts on the game after full-time.
"That felt like a massive 3 points to back last week's win against Hamworthy.
It wasn't pretty at times, and fair play to Clanfield for that. They matched us up at times and gave us a lot to think about, albeit we never looked like conceding.
What's most pleasing is that we're winning the games where we have to do the dirty work. We looked really solid at the back, and with our attacking talent, I always back us to score, and that's how I feel it went today.
Elliott (Pearce-Eavis) came in and looked superb on his 'second debut' and I was delighted for Noel to get his first goal back since returning. Jack Foden was also superb coming in at the back. I could go through every player.
We're now ten unbeaten and have three clean sheets on the trot, so it's a pleasing run, but we have to take it game by game as we have been doing, and all focus now goes on getting prepared for next Saturday."
We return to action next Saturday afternoon when we travel to 17th-placed Fawley AFC before having three consecutive games at the M.A. Hart Stadium, one of which includes facing Fawley again in the second round of the Velocity Wessex League Cup.
New Milton Town: Ollie Bull, Elliott Pearce-Eavis, Jack Foden, Billy Maybury, Louis Moore, Toby Colmer, Ollie Mayo, Noel McCarthy-Gardiner, Callum McHale, Barney Stone and Brad Snelling
Substitutes Used: Cameron MacMonagle, Cameron Smith, Heath Thornton
Goals: Stone 21, McCarthy-Gardiner 76
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