MATCH VERDICT
Clive Hayward
@Byehorse
TORQUAY UNITED 2-1 BRAINTREE TOWN – MATCH SUMMARY
There is a little bit of a habit developing here. In three of their last four games Torquay have come from behind to achieve wins that their performance barely deserved.
Braintree are the latest National League South club, following Chippenham and Slough, to have a hard luck story to tell.
This afternoon’s mugging was enabled by the visitors’ keeper Jack Sims, who was beaten by a horribly overhit Stobbs cross into his top corner and then gave away an injury time penalty with a rash lunge at Aaron Jarvis, who was heading away from goal at the time.
An abject first half by the home team started with a horrible giveaway in midfield, a square defence beaten by an easy through ball and a calm finish from Braintree, who probably couldn’t believe their luck.
There should have been many more boos at half time: nothing Torquay tried had come off. No midfield, jittery at the back and punchless up front.
As at Slough on Saturday, Johnson sent his charges out early for the second half. One wonders really whether he had anything constructive to say in the dressing room. On the touchline all I could hear was an occasional “come on” and sometimes “liven up”. It was a stark contrast with the three-prong Braintree coaching team, who encouraged their players with focused, simple advice throughout the first half.
Nothing changed early in the second, and indeed Braintree started the stronger.
Torquay did put a few more moves together, but they needed a huge slice of luck to get level. On 57 minutes Stobbs won a free kick on the left, and it was a great chance to pump in a far post ball. He completely over-clubbed it, but Sims misjudged the chip and allowed it to fly into the top corner. The hagiographic club match report described it as a moment of real quality. Don’t believe the hype!
In truth, it was largely one way traffic after that.
Without ever showing much fluency the full-timers exerted themselves despite three injuries. The underwhelming Dillon De Silva struck a post and his fellow sub Jenkins-Davies went close before the hearts of the 23 travelling supporters were broken by Jarvis and his late, late penalty show.
PLAYER RATINGS
1. GK: Mark Halstead – 7
No chance with the goal: he was horribly exposed and it was a good finish. A quiet game otherwise, with a couple of decent interventions in the first half.
15. RB: Finley Craske – 6
Clearly looks to get forward if he can. Not outstanding in a poor team performance.
6. CB: Ross Marshall – 4
I lost count of the times he challenged from the wrong side, got spun and rolled by his opposite number and generally looked a liability. Headed a good chance horribly wide in the second half and the offside flag spared his blushes. A dreadful performance, ended early by injury. Limping around the touchline brought him the only round of applause he was ever going to get today.
23. CB: Ollie Tomlinson – 6
Didn’t ooze confidence against limited opposition but got stuck in. Caught square for the goal.
3. LB: Dan Martin – 5
Opinions varied about our formation today, but in my view he was a left back in a defensive four. Unlike some of his teammates he appeared to get worse as the game went on. Something of a shocker. Misplaced passes aplenty.
16. MF: Shaun Donnellan – 5.5
Never any lack of effort. Easy to play around though and as much creative ability as a Cold War era Bulgarian bulldozer.
27. RW: Jack Stobbs – 6
Did give us a bit of a threat down the right, but little end product. Can and must do better. His goal was a fluke, as proved by the next free kick he took from the same place, which was overhit even more badly and sailed into the Family Stand!
4. MF: Tom Lapslie – 6
Did well to last 90 minutes when teammates were dropping like flies again. Worked hard but nothing from Tom today will live in the memory.
10. LW: Lewis Collins – 5
Another poor performance from a player who should be able to dominate in this league. Some world class fannying from Lewis immediately before the Braintree goal.
11. ST: Bradley Ash – 5.5
See Jack Stobbs and Lewis Collins. Brad clearly has an eye for a goal and is thus difficult to leave out, but he did very little to endear himself to me today.
9. ST: Aaron Jarvis – 7
Had to work hard to control hoofed balls up to him. About 85 minutes in, he pursued a breaking Braintree player box to box whilst -e.g.- Lapslie and Donnellan were spectating gormlessly. It wasn’t a great afternoon for Aaron but he kept going. He won and then buried the clinching penalty.
Subs
17. LW: Dillon Da Silva – 5.5
Nowhere near as good on the left, where he had to play when Collins hobbled off. Darted into the box & hit the post unluckily, but generally highly ineffective.
21. LB: Dean Moxey – 6
A shame that he is presumably not fit enough to start. With the abject lack of creativity on show today his long throws would have added a lot.
18. MF: Will Jenkins Davies – N/A
Played in midfield for 15 minutes in total. Little to report.
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MAN OF THE MATCH – Aaron Jarvis
Jarvis, for the Terry Butcher impression (massive bandage after his cut eye on Saturday) and the match winning antics in injury time.
HONOURABLE MENTIONS
Do I have to engage with this? This was a generally poor performance by a team riding it’s luck.
THE OFFICIALS
The referee made some mistakes but he was wise to the timewasting, booking the keeper with 20 minutes to go and another man of Essex saw yellow for delaying aa attacking throw for them. The penalty was at the stonewall end of the spectrum and I’m sure it was a highlight of his career so far.
TACTICS
Dirty, filthy hoofball for the most part. Arguably it suited the personnel today because there was no spark in midfield and thus bypassing it perhaps made sense. We were crying out for someone to put his foot on the ball though.
THE OPPOSITION
Another team who- thank heavens- came to Plainmoor with no real belief that they could win the game. Torquay were there for the taking but Braintree showed little ambition and were eager to try to run the clock down with the normal combination of slow throw-ins, standing on the ball at free kicks and rolling around with as much head-clutching as possible.
CONCLUSION
We keep winning games despite playing poorly. It’s an admirable trait. We may even win this league but it isn’t unfair to point out that the squad is well short of an acceptable standard or depth for any higher level. There were 2500 Torquay fans there today and Osborne and Johnson should be reaching out to all of them to apologise for the state this club is in, and to thank them for their loyalty.
COYY – CLIVE
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