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| A very encouraging performance against Seal from the A League, a team that beat us 6-0 on our only previous meeting, back in 2003. Although Seal only brought 9 players, we agreed to play with 10 to lessen our advantage. Despite not having played a match for six weeks, Tonbridge started brightly and the Seal keeper had to make a save to keep out a shot from Chris Newbury in the opening minute. We were without two regular strikers so the forwards were roatated. Seal took the lead slightly against the run of play in the sixth minute, after Greg Byrne tracked a runner from midfield but allowed him to get a cross in from the right. A Seal forward had a simple unchallenged tap in at the far post. Both sides continued to create chances, but Seal doubled their advantage in the 28th minute. Martin Hill intercepted the ball but it fell into the path of a Seal player who had a clear shot at goal. Two minutes later Ben Spring went close, beating the Seal keeper, but the ball bounced out off the inside of the left hand post. Two minutes after that we got the goal our approach play deserved when unlikely striker Max Turner kept a cool head in the box to slot home off the same post.
As the second half started, defender Jack Holden moved into midfield and started to make dangerous runs down the left. On the second of these runs he beat a defender and put a great ball across the box for Jamie Wickham to score the equaliser. Having worked hard to get back from two-nil down, the game started to turn against us. Martin Hill was harshly judged to have pushed a Seal player in the penalty area, but the resulting spot-kick hit the bar and went over. A minute later a Seal player slalomed his way through the defence and produced a cool finish to give Seal the lead again. There were a number of pleasing performances: James Faulkner made some fine saves, Tom Ryan and Martin Hill were solid in the centre of defence, Greg Byrne and Chris Newbury won a lot of ball in midfield, and Ben Spring and Jamie Wickham caused problems for the Seal defence, but man-of-the-match was Jack Holden who put in probably his best ever performance in a Tonbridge shirt. |
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