TT REVIEW

Alan Wills – @alanjwills

TWO IN A ROW

With both sides locked on 9 points from the first 7 matches in 12th and 13th respectively, this was a chance to finally kickstart either Maidenhead United’s or Torquay United’s season.

Clearly, from the first whistle it was Torquay United who wanted it more. Even before the sendings off they looked the more likely victors, with the number of shots on target in double figures by the final whistle.

Hopefully this 4-0 away win on top of the win against Folkestone last Saturday will be the catalyst for a strong run in the league, as Torquay look to finish as high as possible in order to have the chance to finally achieve promotion this season.

RED & YELLOW BINGO

Approaching the 15 minute mark, the first sending off was unnecessary from a Maidenhead point of view as they were attacking at the time near the penalty area, before losing the ball. In an attempt to get the ball back quickly the Maidenhead attacker Jordon Ragguette dived in feet first and scythed down young Torquay debutant Caleb Roberts. It was an instant red card.

The other Maidenhead player to go, George Abbott, was dismissed just after the half time break for two yellow cards and it seemed to be deserved.

The referee though, was very card happy throughout the encounter booking a number of players on both sides, including five for Torquay. Let’s hope that suspensions for too many yellow cards don’t occur until we manage to sign another centre half. Both Torquay centre backs were booked on the night.

NEW SIGNINGS

All five recent signings were on show for at least part of the evening, and they were all up for it, and performed really well.

The only new signing who played the entire 90 minutes was centre back Oludare Olúwafúnwa, whose surname means “The Lord gave to us” in Yoruba. Let’s hope that the gods of football treat us well come the end of this season this time, and Dare plays a vital part as a fitting replacement for Sam Dreyer.

Also starting for the first time was midfielder Caleb Roberts, a young loanee from Plymouth Argyle. His debut was impressive as he filled the boots of the injured Matt Worthington on the night. As well as producing a brilliant ball through for Deon Moore’s disallowed “goal”, he was the player fouled for the first sending off.

Winger Tegan Finn replaced his fellow Plymouth Argyle loanee at half time for his own debut for The Gulls. His 45 minutes was even more impressive with a showcase of tricky dribbling, an assist for Dan Hayfield, and a very well taken goal from the edge of the penalty area. On this performance, if we can extend his one month loan, then we should definitely do so.

Also coming on at half time was new winger Angelo Cappello. He looked a threat on the left wing, and it was a foul on him which led to the second sending off. Angelo’s appearance only lasted half an hour though as he had to go off due to cramp, but what we saw of him was very promising.

After his goal scoring exploits on Saturday, winger Jacob Beaumont-Clark came on for the last ten or so minutes to further torment the tiring Maidenhead defenders as the Gulls added two more goals to their tally.

DISALLOWED GOALS

We thought at the time that four goals had been disallowed, two from Cody and two from Deon. However, it turned out that Cody had hit it narrowly wide of the far post when he was deemed to be offside, so it was only three goals ruled out!

The “goals” from Deon who had a brilliant game in partnership up front with Cody all night did seem to be offside, including the one where the last touch to put him through was from a Maidenhead defender.

Either way, to have this number of goals disallowed must be very rare in Torquay’s history. Even the playoff final at Ashton Gate only had two disallowed…

Fortunately, on this occasion though, it didn’t change the result. However, Maidenhead couldn’t have complained if Torquay had won by seven or eight nil, such was their dominance from start to finish.