St. Neot’s Playoff Dreams Disappear With Loss

This game was a must win for St. Neot in their attempt to stay in touch of making the playoffs for the winter phase of the Callywith Flexi league.

The game was crisp and free flowing for the first twenty minutes. Deft touches, slick passing from St. Neot, gave hope that the opposition, who at this point had not won any of their games, would conceded a couple going into the break.

Arran Graham’s pace out on the left wing split open the Lanivet defence on more than one occasion, but quality in the final third eluded St. Neot.

In the 38th minute, the referee awarded the Saint’s a penalty. A Lanivet defender seemingly handled the ball having crouched down to control it. Saint’s midfielder Jamie Eldridge stepped up and confidently struck the ball low and left of the keeper. With lightning quick reflexes, the keeper leap towards the ball and gathered it up to deny St. Neot taking the lead.

The second half started brightly for Lanivet, controlling the centre of the field well and getting balls up into the final third. Their perseverance paid off and they look the lead through Turpie after some clever interplay.

St. Neot looked lethargic and tired after the break. The goal seemingly taking the wind out of their sails. But through the second half, the pace began to pick up again, and the crisp free flowing football which we had been witness to in the first half reappeared. New Saints signing Adam Keen, used the quickness and passing skill of Berry and Jones, split open the Lanivet defence. A thunderous effort saw us equalise 11 minutes from time.

The frantic nature of this match didn’t let up with Lanivet hitting the bar and a tightening of defence from both sides would mean it would take a defensive error for someone to snatch the win… and that’s sadly what happened.

Another pacey Lanivet attack through the centre of the park, saw one of the Saints defenders, only partially slip, but was enough to allow that man Turpie slip through and calmly slot under Bainbridge in the St. Neot goal. This 2nd Lanivet goal came too late in the day for St. Neot to mount any sort of offensive in the remainder of the match.

St. Neot were left ruing what might have been in this game. Clearly the players of the Saint’s squad are beginning to get used to playing with each other now, clearly demonstrated in the quality of the football on show through out. The result whilst a relief for Lanivet, is not a fair reflection of the quality of the game. The ‘what should have been’ turned into a reality of the clubs situation; early days, the players still getting to know each other style. there are better things to come from us as a club, we need to knuckle down and work harder for one another.

This result, means that it is now impossible for St. Neot to get into the playoffs, but finishing mid table is the aim. We are battling with St. Tudy for 3rd spot, with our remaining fixture against Polzeath next week and St. Tudy playing both Looe and Polzeath in the coming weeks means this is an exciting finish to this phase.

St. Neot Starting line-up:

Adam Bainbridge, Nathan Berry, Ray Clarke, Neal Davy, James Eldridge, William Fieldhouse, Henry German, Arran Graham, Liam Jones, Adam Keen, Matt Nottle