Eastbourne 3’s 4 – 3 Crawley 2’s
An early start saw Crawley travel down to Eastbourne for their next game, with Luke Miles making his first start for the 3’s this season. Eastbourne settled into a rhythm quicker then Crawley, and looked more dangerous with them having the lion’s share of the chances. Crawley struggled with the slippy pitch with Ryan Banton hitting the deck. Crawley did manage however to get the breakthrough, with quick interplay between Thomas Jarvis and Alex Coote, with the latter firing the ball into the “D” to the run of J Fuller who deflected the ball artfully past the keeper.
Eastbourne kept playing there game with their centre back firing raking aerials, which proved challenging for the defence to handle. One bobbled past two defenders for the Eastbourne forwards to go through 2 v 1 against C Rockingham, who had no chance. Eastbourne then doubled their lead with a short corner that was squared right, passed back to the penalty flick spot, for the Eastbourne player to fire home under no pressure.
Then came a contender for Goal of the Season. Karl Bass picked the ball up just on the Crawley “25”, and then ran down the left side line, beating half the Eastbourne team, firing his shot past the keeper from an acute angle. What a Goal! A sucker punch followed on the stroke of half time with a short corner for Eastbourne who struck home from the top of the “D”. Crawley went into the break 3-2 down.
Crawley did not let their heads go down, and scored an equaliser via a short corner routine that saw J Fuller flick the ball past the keeper, 3-3. The game went back and forth, Alex Foxcroft took a nasty blow to the arm but was able to continue. Crawley had to be grateful to Rockingham for a number of good saves but Crawley were not able to keep them out forever, and Eastbourne scored a 4th. Both teams had more chances but neither were able to add to the score.
Despite the loss, it was a good performance and a top effort and Crawley can take heart from that.
Team
Chris Rockingham, L Miles, Oliver Robinson, Priyesh Patel, Ian Berry, Scott Mansfield, L Mulcalhy, R Banton, A Coote, T Jarvis, K Bass, J Fuller, A Foxcroft