Southern one

Okehampton men’s firsts 1

Taunton Vale 3

ON Saturday Okehampton welcomed the current league leaders Taunton Vale to Simmons Park hoping to steal some points and gain momentum coming into the latter stages of the season.

The game started off quickly with both sides applying pressure in the middle of the pitch with fast paced action. 

Okehampton were the first to stumble and conceded a short corner; the Oke defence managed to keep it and several further short corner attempts by the visitors out of the goal until a ball slid onto a defending foot on the line, giving the visitors an early penalty flick. Okehampton keeper Hayden Bond was beaten by a quality flick ointo the roof of the net. From this early goal the visitors kept applying pressure hoping to keep their momentum, however, the organised home defence stood firm. Breaking out from defence, captain Luke Liversidge caught the visitors on the run and his slick reverse pass into Nick Luxton; Luxton passed on to forward Ruben Bourne who easily slot it past the keeper at the back post making it 1-1.

This reignited Okehampton’s tempo and as Taunton responded the game opened up, however, neither team could gain an advantage leaving it at 1-1 at half time.

As the game progressed the fast pressing home team could not finish off their advantage. Eventually the visitors found a gap in the home defence and got a shot in, but a deflection sent the ball past the goalkeeper’s pads into to side netting making it 1-2. This play reinvigorated the visitors and they started piling on the pressure. With Oke struggling to find clear breaks or build pressure the visitors created a numbers advantage in attack; some clever crisp passing and movement through the middle stretched the Oke defence and the visitors further increased their lead.

Okehampton fought back hard trying to build up pressure but tired legs all over he pitch meant there was no addition to the score.