OH-NO-SEVEN! LYMO SPY A WAY TO STEAL THE BRICKIES' GLORY

ALL good things must come to an end - and after six straight wins to start the season, the Brickies were denied a seventh when they were held to a 2-2 draw by neighbours Lymington. This was never going to be an easy night, with the red and white striped crew clearly pumped up to have a crack at spoiling the Brickies’ flawless record. Although they wouldn’t lean on excuses for a costly, lack-lustre second half, New Milton had gone into the game without several in-form players - Joe Roberts, Hector Rayner, Jake Carswell and Noel McCarthy-Gardiner all missing and both Niall Dixon and Callum McHale going off during the second half. Earlier Dixon had been on the scoresheet again, his fourth of the season going in soon after Callum Clarke’s sixth. Predictably, the Brickies had made the early running - but equally predictable was that Lymo, despite their 17th place in the league, were going to “get stuck in” and try to claim the league’s current “scalp”. Yet for 45 minutes everything went fairly well. Only two minutes were on the clock when Jack Broad let fly from 25 yards and forced an anxious parry from James Mayo in the Lymington goal. With 11 minutes gone it was 1-0, another excellent goal from Callum Clarke. He cut in from the left, jinked into the box past a defender, and smashed it hard and low out of Mayo’s reach into the far corner. One almost became two when Dixon’s header from a corner flew just over - but it was not long before Dixon made the net ripple. Elliott Pearce-Eavis did all the hard work, cutting in from the right past two frantic challenges before setting up Dixon to hit it hard and high past Mayo. That should really have been it, a lead good enough to hold onto. But even then there were warning signs, the ball started to flash around in the Brickies’ goalmouth a little too often, and Lloyd Thomas had to be at his best to keep out a couple of decent efforts. Then, inexplicably, in the second half, it went completely pear-shaped. Lymington took control of the game, and although they seldom got as far as troubling Lloyd Thomas, they were certainly dominating play. The tide turned decisively towards them in the 70th minute, when a hotly-contested penalty kick was awarded against Jack Broad. It seemed clear he did not intend to handle the ball, simply having his arm raised in a natural jumping position as the ball was deflected against him from very close range. Referee Colin Hubbard brushed aside Milton’s appeals and Harrison Fay’s textbook spot-kick sent Thomas the wrong way. So 2-1, and Lymo really fired up to get something from the game - which they did in the first minute of added time. Fair play to them for a slick move - even though a hint of offside - an excellent ball in from the right met with an equally-excellent header from Ollie Strickland. Only then did the Brickies wake from their slumber. They peppered the Lymo goal in the final added minutes, and twice almost landed the goal which would have made it Seven-Up - first a blast from Jack Broad which almost de-capitated a defender on the goal-line, then a massive scramble around the six-yard box with at least two goalbound efforts blocked. But in the end it was too little, too late. Even so, New Milton remain top of the table, with two points and a game in hand on the chasing pack. Attendance was 351, Man of the Match Jack Broad. Next up it’s Saturday’s tricky FA Vase visit to Baffins Milton Rovers, one division above.