NO GRUMBLES AS ROBINS LEFT FEELING THE BLUES
Two sides missing key personnel met at the Beacon where Ringmer coped the better to run out 2-1 winners over Hassocks.
This was a day on which nothing went right for the Robins. Already missing influential midfielder Kieran O’Callaghan and the league’s leading marksman Phil Gault, Mickey Jewell saw his side further decimated by injuries in 20 cruel minutes.
They lost captain Stuart Faith to a knee injury at the break. He was followed into the treatment room eight minutes later by Jamie Weston with a hip complaint and 17 minutes after that, Anthony Hibbert was forced off with a nasty looking dislocated finger. The early diagnosis is that it will be enough to keep him out for the remainder of the season.
Shorn of five important players and with more than a few heavy legs after their battling Tuesday win at East Grinstead Town, perhaps it shouldn’t have come as a surprise that Hassocks gave an underwhelming account of themselves.
Ringmer meanwhile had selection problems of their own. The Blues had seen three of their key players leave the Caburn for Ryman League Division One side Walton Casuals in midweek, leaving both sides under-strength and with nobody in attendance really knowing what to expect.
What we got was an open and entertaining game in the first half which tailed off markedly in the second when Hassocks’ injuries affected the rhythm and tempers became frayed between players and benches, causing referee Michael Ryan to start dealing out more cards than a croupier.
It took the Robins just nine minutes to open the scoring, Elliott Butler slaloming his way to the by-line to pull back to Weston who neatly beat his man to get a shot away.
It may have been heading just wide before Ringmer’s Louie Munnery turned it in but there was enough doubt to legitimately award the goal to Weston, his fourth of the season.
At the other end, Simon Lehkyj saved well from Scott Marshall who got through one-on-one before Faith headed a perfect Butler corner against the bar and Tom Rand in the Ringmer goal did well to save from Nathan Miles.
Faith’s place was taken by Sam Goodridge at the interval with Lee Cooper replacing Weston shortly after, the winger having further aggravated a problem that he picked up at East Court four days previously. Stuart Brown came on for Hibbert but the game was already beginning to fall apart by that point.
Both dugouts had become involved in an unsavoury slanging match while the situation wasn’t helped by some strange decisions from Mr Ryan who had looked completely in control throughout the first half.
The referee informed James Westlake he was booking him for persistent fouling after his first real tackle of the match and then Miles picked up a yellow in an incident that angered the home support gathered in the Maurice Boxall Stand.
Mr Ryan had already blown his whistle when Ringer’s Michael Brown launched a terrible two footed lunge on Miles, an act of violence which incensed the normally calm Miles. His reaction earned a rare caution.
Remarkably, Mr Ryan restricted his punishment for Brown to the same colour with the general consensus even among the travelling support being that he was lucky to still be on the pitch.
Ringmer responded the better of the two sides to Mr Ryan’s weird decisions and they turned the screw in the final 25 minutes, deservedly scoring twice through half time substitute Robbie Frost.
His pace proved to be really unsettling to the home defence and it led to him netting the equaliser with 69 minutes played.
Ringmer kept relentlessly banging on the Hassocks door after that with the only surprise being that it took them until five minutes from time to finally score a deserved winner with Frost the man on target again.
Hassocks: Simon Lehkyj; Rob South, Ashley Marsh, Stuart Faith, Lee Bryant; James Westlake, Nathan Cooper, Anthony Hibbert, Elliott Butler; Jamie Weston, Nathan Miles.
Subs: Sam Goodridge (Faith 45), Lee Cooper (Weston 53), Stuart Brown (Hibbert 65).
