St Stephens Borough 1 Looe Town 3 - Report

[Julian Chenery]

St Stephens Borough 1 Looe Town 3

Borough looked the better side in the early exchanges but were aghast when after about 20 minutes a penalty was awarded against them.

A Borough player completely missed his kick whilst trying to clear the ball and then the ball bounced up and accidentally hit his arm.

The referee claimed that this was a deliberate act and a spot kick was given which calmly dispatch by the Looe captain.

Borough came back strongly and superb combination play between Stuart Fort and Jamie Walton-Gould ended up with Fort having a one on one with the keeper and making no mistake.

For the remainder of the half things turned a bit scrappy and going into half time 1-1 was a fair result although there was a couple of chances at each end.

The second half continued as the first half had ended with no real pattern to the game.

About 10 minutes in Looe were awarded a hotly disputed corner as the linesman had flagged for offside in the build up of play but was overruled by the referee.

From the resultant corner poor marking in the Borough defence gave Looe a free header and their number 8 made no mistake leaving the keeper no chance.

Borough upped the work rate after this and created numerous chances but could not convert any of them.

However, 10 minutes from time a long hopeful straight punt up the pitch caught the Borough's central defenders sleeping and Looe's centre forward nipped in to make it 3-1.

A general all round improvement is required if Borough are to get anything out of Saturday's first league game away at St Dennis.