MAGPIES SNATCH GLITTERING THREE POINTS

Hampton & Richmond Borough’s disappointing home form continued as they slipped to a seventh home defeat of the season against a resolute Dorchester side. Two first half headers gave the visitors the lead and despite playing 35 minutes of the second half against 10 men the Beavers could only muster up an Ian Hodges goal.

With Matt Lovett still feeling the effects of his injury at Worcester, Keiron Drake was drafted in to the starting line up, the only other change from Saturday’s win was Dave Tarpey starting ahead of Karl Beckford.

Hampton started the game brightly, and Hodges had the ball in the back of the net, however the goal was ruled out for a push in the build up. Shortly after that Dorchester took the lead with their first attack of the evening, a cross from the right found Josh Llewellyn unmarked in the penalty area and he headed past Drake in to the top corner of the net. This seemed to knock the home side out of their stride and the game petered out in to a midfield battle, and when the Beavers did get the ball forward to often the overlaps of Tanner and Matthews would be ignored or the final pass lacked sufficient quality to trouble the visitors.

With their second meaning full attack of the game the visitors extended the lead, and once again it was a cross from the right which did the damage as Ryan Moss evaded his marker and headed in to the bottom corner.  Dorchester had the ball in the back of the net for a third time, however the ‘goal’ was disallowed for a push on Drake.

During half time Alan Devonshire shuffled his pack, brining on Stuart Lake for Lawrence Yak and pushing Craig Dundas up alongside Ian Hodges, and this almost had an immediate impact as Dundas forced a fine save from Reagan, after getting on the end of a Hodges knock down.

Dorchester were then reduced to 10 when Matt Groves elbowed Dean Wells near the corner flag as the Hampton skipper was shepherding the ball out of play and the visitors were lucky not to go down to 9 when Nathan Walker went straight through the back of Barrie Matthews having already been shown a yellow card.

On 60 minutes the home side got a foothold back in the game when Ian Hodges headed in his 6th goal of the season, getting on the end of a Dave Tarpey free kick. The same player also had a couple of shouts for penalties as Dorchester took a somewhat physical approach to defending as the game wore on, however the same issues that had persisted in the first half continued to plague the Beavers during the second half. All too often, when the opportunity came to deliver the ball in, it was not taken and passes were misplaced or over hit when the home side were in the ascendancy.

Dorchester had an excellent chance to wrap the game up, when Drake, inexplicably picked up a Dean Wells back pass, but redeemed himself with a decent save from the resulting free kick, but overall it was a frustrating night for the Beavers, who will be looking to put things right in time for Saturday’s trip to Maidenhead United.