COOPER AND PITCHER HELP COMEBACK KINGS MUSSEL POINTS OFF SHOREHAM
The comeback kings of Sussex County League Division One did it again at Shoreham on Tuesday night.
Goals in the final 15 minutes from Nathan Cooper and Nick Pitcher saw Hassocks recover from 3-1 down to leave Middle Road with a 3-3 draw and a share of the spoils.
The Robins have trailed in five of their past six matches before rallying to put points on the board, keeping them in the frame for a top four finish.
Mickey Jewell would have been particularly pleased with avoiding defeat given the wholesale changes he was forced into from the laboured 2-1 victory over Lancing at the weekend.
Leading scorer Phil Gault missed out with a dead leg. Dan Jacques switched to right back, Rob South moved to a left wing role he had never fulfilled before in his life and Aaron Czech and Jamie Ingham were promoted into the starting XI.
Czech and Ingham joined Kieran O’Callaghan in a five-man midfield. That left Phil Johnson to plough a lone furrow up front in the absence of Gault and long-term injury victims Nathan Miles and Craig Knowles.
It did not take Johnson long to make his mark as he opened the scoring with just five minutes on the clock.
A quick Hassocks break allowed Mark Price to get on the ball in a dangerous position. His visionary through pass released Johnson down the left, from where he cut inside and fired home with aplomb.
The Robins could not build on that perfect start as Shoreham’s dangerous wingers came into proceedings.
Hassocks surrendered possession in midfield on 23 minutes and that gave Shoreham the chance to pounce down the right, culminating in Alex Fair beating young Max Collins in the away goal.
That the Robins made it into half time on level terms was largely down to the efforts of their Under 18s goalkeeper over the next 20 minutes.
Collins pulled off two genuine world class saves from Fair and Rob O’Toole amongst a flurry of quality stops to maintain parity.
Shoreham were also guilty of missing a plethora of chances as they totally overwhelmed Hassocks, especially in wide areas.
Any hopes that the break would bring an end to the onslaught were quickly dashed and within 10 minutes of the restart, the Musselmen had scored twice to move 3-1 ahead.
Hassocks failed to clear their lines from a corner and in the resulting melee, Ashley Marsh was adjudged to have handled. Richard Watton stepped up and rifled the spot kick past Collins.
Things got even worse five minutes later from yet another corner. The Robins did not even have the opportunity to mess up their clearance. Instead, they left O’Toole totally free to rise like the proverbial salmon and power home a header.
With his side now needing to show more going forward, Jewell made a double substitution and switched from 4-5-1 to 4-3-3.
Youth team striker Jake Booth replaced Czech. Booth and Johnson played either side of O’Callaghan, pushed forward from midfield as a target man.
O’Callaghan’s now-vacant holding role was taken over by Cooper, introduced in place of the hard-working Ingham.
The changes soon paid dividends as the Robins pulled one back out of the blue with the game ticking into its final quarter of an hour.
Tom Davess sent over a dangerous inswinging corner with his trusty left boot which put Shoreham goalkeeper Jordan Mitchell in a world of problems.
Mitchell flapped, the ball hit the face off the crossbar, rebounded into Cooper and over the line from no more than a yard.
It was a lucky goal against the run of play but it gave Hassocks the lift they needed with their best spell of the game following.
Shoreham were now hanging on as desperately as the Robins had been towards the end of the first half. The pressure eventually told with five minutes left when Hassocks found their equaliser.
O’Callaghan had a goal bound header kept out on the line by the hand of Matt Flemming, the only problem being he was not the Musselmen goalkeeper.
Flemming saw red for his Dennis Rodman impression and with normal penalty takers Gault and Anthony Hibbert missing, it fell to Pitcher to score with a no-nonsense effort.
Hassocks might have even won it in the little time remaining. The enigmatic Jacques and Johnson both went close, only for Mitchell to prove equal to their efforts.
Hassocks: Max Collins; Dan Jacques, Ashley Marsh, Nick Pitcher, Tom Davess; Mark Price, Jamie Ingham, Kieran O’Callaghan, Aaron Czech, Rob South; Phil Johnson.
Subs: Nathan Cooper (Ingham), Jake Booth (Czech), Zac Dove (Price).
Starman: Max Collins. Without his four or five top class saves the game would have been over long before Hassocks launched their comeback.
