Devon and Exeter premier

Fenton 4

Okehampton Argyle 5

OKEHAMPTON Argyle somehow managed to come out winners in a highly entertaining end to end match away at a dark and wet Saturday afternoon in Fenton

Within the 90 minutes this match showed all the good things about Okehampton Argyle and also all of their weaknesses.

They scored five goals of such high quality but also conceded four scrappy goals at the other end.

Playing down the slope in the first half the first Argyle goal came in the tenth minute; after a lovely move down the right hand side the ball found its way to Steve Madge — on the edge of Feniton’s 18 yard box — who turned the home centre half and curled a delightful shot into the top corner giving the Fenton keeper no chance

The second followed five minutes later, when a perfectly waited though ball by Tallan Burns was met by a rampaging Ed Squire, who took one touch and buried the ball into the bottom left hand corner from 20 yards, again giving the Feniton keeper no chance.

The third goal came after Brad Ausden had skipped past two Fenton defenders and was brought down 25 yards from goal; the resulting free kick was beautifully curled into the bottom left hand corner by the cultured left foot of Tallan Burns.

At 0-3 after 30 minutes Argyle supporters were not wrong to think the game was over but this Oke side, without the leadership of Dale Chadwick at the back (who was sidelined with an injury) are vulnerable at set pieces and after a couple of corners, which they somehow managed to scramble away, they finally conceded to a far post header they really should have cleared.

This gave the Feniton a new lease of life and they started to put the Okehampton defence under some pressure, but as they started to push forward they left gaps at the back and when Brad Ausden received the ball wide out on the left hand side he cut inside his marker and played a ball out to the overlapping Corey Burns who chipped the ball back superbly into the path of Ausden; he hit the ball first time from 22 yards in the bottom left hand corner leaving the Feniton keeper routed to the spot. The Feniton keeper was probably thinking that Argyle had only four shots and he never had a chance with any of them.

Having to deal with slope and wind in the second half nearly proved Argyle’s downfall as Feniton started to apply more and more pressure and after another set piece and goal mouth scramble they scored their second goal to really get their tails up. It was really against the run of play that Argyle scored their fifth and final goal and what a goal it was when Tallan Burns received the ball wide out on the right hand side; with no support he ran at the Feniton defence and skipped past two defenders and from 25 yards he hit an absolute belter into the top left hand corner leaving the Feniton keeper without a chance - earning the applause of the Feniton supporters.

With 20 minutes to go this goal turned out to be the match winner as Feniton scored another two goals — both after yet more goal mouth scrambles and almost scored an equaliser with practically the last kick of game.

Argyle definitely deserved the three points for the quality of their finishing but they must learn to defend as a team or they will continue to lose ground to the leaders as the season develops.