Torquay v City

Mills for Brunt only change.

Lost 1-0 to 80m goal.

On the coach home now. Definitely deserved a point from what was a very even game. Quite a few chances for each side but they took one and we didn’t.

We’ll play a lot worse than that this season and win. Unlucky City.

PS - 125 from Bath represents a good turnout too.

Agreed Ashley. We played some lovely football at times tonight and deserved something from the game. Yes, excellent turnout of Ciity fans - looked more than 125 to me.

comrade powell wrote:Agreed Ashley. We played some lovely football at times tonight and deserved something from the game. Yes, excellent turnout of Ciity fans - looked more than 125 to me.

126 if you include me

Agree with Ashley, City played very well and definitely deserved something out of the game. The biggest compliment to how well we played first half was Owers making two subs at half time, Batten absolutely bossed their number 19 (Jamie Reid?) so I wasn't surprised to see him come off.

As an aside I'm shattered after driving back from Torquay so hats off to anyone who's done the Margate/Concord etc., trips on a Tuesday night, they must be killers.

Really strong performance from City which deserved three points and on another day those chances may have been taken. Respect to each and every player including those on bench who put together such a superb display in front of an opposition crowd of over 2,000.

Big thanks to the supporters club for arranging the coach and had a great day out and now dust has settled reflecting on how well the team played....did us proud. Good bunch on the coach and will travel again...what a coach driver as well ( Thanks Nick ) ....how does he manage to negotiate those narrow streets on match days and get us right to the turnstiles !!

Let's keep up the performances and confident we will get the points on Saturday. Three points from those run of games ....equate to 3 draws which is what the boys deserve.

We played some lovely football last night and Batten in particular was outstanding, It's just a pity we couldn't put away the chances which came our way in the 2nd half.
The dust up in the 1st half involving our bench and their fan was because their fan spat at Jerry and this Muppet was eventually ejected by the stewards. The Torquay fans to be fair to them generally seem quite disgusted that this had happened.

I actually thought the first half was a really poor spectacle. I'm not saying we played poorly, bar that early glaring miss we didn't give Torquay much and we frustrated them. It was just a case of cancelling each other out, we played it around nicely but only forced the keeper into one save. We looked comfortable.

Second half for the first 20-25 minutes we had them on the ropes and had we scored, it would've been game over. I don't think Torquay will concede many this season and will be tricky to play against, but there's no shame in our performance. That's two teams almost certain to be in the top 10 who we've faced and there's barely any difference, and that included Saturday where for 75% of the game we weren't at our best.

We knew this season would be competitive. Third season in a row where we've started with two straight defeats but if the two teams we've faced this campaign also finish in the bottom half, as Margate/Weston and Bognor/Chippenham did, we are in one tough division.

I broadly agree with Mark. I think that we saw two teams who will both be in the top 10 generally cancelling each other out. We looked like the better footballing team while they were possibly the more effective (and much bigger, until Brunt came on). The team is starting to read each other better and there was some really impressive passing play and movement off the ball but everything just fizzled out in the last third apart from Watkins' header against the cross bar, Stearn's blocked shot and a couple of shots off-target (one from Rigg and the howler from Mills). Really, apart from Stearn's rush of blood to the head last Saturday, the goals have been scrappy and come from not clearing our lines well enough so, perhaps, a bit of defensive work and sharpness in front of the goal is what is needed.

Torquay, I would say, should be more concerned than us; they need to bounce straight back up and they are going to hoping for the play-offs with that sort of display. As Mark says, both teams will probably be knocking around the pay-off positions with us and neither have particularly given us a hard time even with the points dropped. While H & R's home loss last night makes Saturday look more optimistic, the home games against Gloucester City and Dulwich Hamlet really look like the games to be kickstarting the season.

westonpundit wrote:
Big thanks to the supporters club for arranging the coach and had a great day out

Thanks Pundit - I've passed that on to Cheryl who worked very hard to arrange this trip. I hear that there were several new faces onboard which made the decision to get there early the right one.