FINAL SCORE:

Modbury........................6 Tantamount FC........... 0

Report by Ben Howarth

Not a game, I’m afraid, that the Mount boys will want to remember. In previous weeks, Tantamount had given Modbury a run for their money, but on this occasion the league leaders exposed the gulf in class between the two teams. The first half saw some useful attacking football from both sides. Moody gave his now standard hard working display up front, whilst James Rose made some decent runs forward, and provided some good tackles. Ollie Howarth played well, combining some good on the ball skills, accurate passing and sound defending. Sadly, Modbury’s finishing was incisive and they made good use of their chances to fire home four goals. As the half went on, Modbury were able to hold on to the ball, making good use of their disciplined passing and composure on the ball. At half time, it was effectively over because Modbury are far too good to let leads like that slip.

The second half saw a ragged performance from Tantamount, and they seemed to lose their shape. Some players seemed exhausted towards the end, and this lead to questions from the sidelines if Tantamount are really making best use of the rolling subs system. It was nice to see James Ward, an AFC Maidstone legend, turn out in the iconic, and award winning, yellow shirt of the Mount. He might want to forget the overly fancy flick he attempted which resulted in a soft goal, and it was only the reaction of the Spence which stopped him being the second Tanta to bag an own goal in two weeks. Despite these lapses, he actually played well, and showed good on the ball skills, and good fitness levels - clearly delivering charity bags in Hampshire has left him with strong lungs. Hopefully, he will become a regular fixture at LLC. There was some controversy as Pilcher, who donned the captains armband for the day, was adjudged to have stepped into the area. He insists he didn’t, while Moody observed that it was ‘a tight call’. It didn’t really matter, as the Modbury man managed to not even fire on target. Nevertheless, Tantamount were hammered 6-0 and were lucky it wasn’t more.

Moody - a hard working display

LINE-UP: Spencer; O.Howarth, B.Howarth, Rose; Moody SUBS: Pilcher, Ward

SCORERS: None

Manager's Comments:

Modbury are a good side, hence why they're top, and they gave us the runaround in the first half. We tightened up in the second but the thing with Modbury is that even when they're winning by a big scoreline they still give it their all, and are notorious for scoring late goals. They added two more in the second half which, like most of the others, were well worked goals. They did win a very dubious penalty, there was no way I was in the area, but justice was done when they scuffed it wide. I'm disappointed by the scoreline as we'd never lost by more than 3 goals to Modbury before but this performance wasn't up to the standard of the previous meetings.