Southern one

Okehampton firsts 4

Dart 0

OKEHAMPTON men faced second place Dart at home, bidding to continue their rich vein of form. With both teams only being able to field 11 players each, it was evident that fitness would be a key determiner to the result of the match.

The home side Okehampton took their momentum into the game, wingers Jack Watson and George Morgan caused havoc to the Dart back three.

A dynamic dribbling run from Luke Miller and joint man of the match Nick Luxton created an opening for Watson on the right, whose attempted cross was fortunately deflected into the Dart goal for 1-0 to Oke. The sound structure of Oke’s press prevented Dart from building any form of momentum, Luke Liversidge sitting in midfield marshalled the troops into position. On the odd occasion that Dart managed to advance on the Oke goal, defenders Rob Hall, Rod Gers, Joff Stephens and Simon Bourne thwarted the attack with composed, solid tackling.

The potency of Oke’s attack told as they were awarded a number of short corners. Eventually, the ball was shifted to Luxton who fired the ball across goal for Liversidge to get a key deflection and put Oke 2-0 up.

With Oke in the ascendancy, it looked like the three points were firmly in the bag, but they were hungry for more goals. A well worked move starting with centre back Rob Hall resulted in striker Sam Whalley picking the ball up on the right, driving past three defenders before slotting the ball into the path of Luxton who cooly finished past the oncoming keeper.

With 10 minutes remaining, Dart had still only registered one shot on target, an easy day at the office for keeper Andrew Hookway. The barrage of attacks on Dart’s goal continued, a rasping shot from Whalley was effectively saved by their keeper. The ball kindly fell to Luxton who masterfully manoeuvred his way out of a cluster of defenders and hit the ball off of his back foot, surprising the keeper to score his second and Oke’s fourth of the day.

Dart attempted further attacks in the dying minutes but Oke’s superior fitness exhausted the away team into submission. Okehampton move into third place with many games still to play.