HORROR HALF HOUR SENDS HASSOCKS TO ‘HAVEN DEFEAT
Benjamin Franklin said that there are only two things certain in life – death and taxes. But you can add a third to that list – Hassocks losing away at Newhaven.
The Robins have never come away from the Trafalgar Ground with so much as a point in their previous four competitive visits. There was no danger of that changing here as a first half horror show saw them head into the break trailing 4-0.
Three of those goals could easily be put into the gifts category as Hassocks were undone time and time again by balls through the middle, which the clinical Newhaven attack gleefully accepted to send the Dockers to the top of the early Premier Division table.
There was no attempt to hide from the fact that this was a desperately poor day at the office, Phil Wickwar admitting afterwards that his side simply weren’t at the races.
“You can’t gift a team like Newhaven three goals as we did today. We didn’t make them work for anything,” was his assessment after the final whistle.
“The lads did show great character in the second half as we could easily have thrown the towel in. But that was too little, too late. It’s only a defeat, there is no need to panic and we will regroup before Midhurst on Saturday.”
That much improved showing in the second 45 was one of the only positives for those who braved the trip in conditions that were more akin to the middle of February than an August Bank Holiday Monday morning.
There were three changes from the side that beat Lingfield so emphatically 48 hours previously. Unavailability deprived the Robins of Dan Stokes, Mark Price and the enigmatic Dan Jacques with their places taken by Bradley Tighe, Nathan Miles and Spencer Slaughter.
This was Slaughter’s first outing since rejoining the club from Haywards Heath Town and although it was not the result he would have wanted, it was good to see him back in a Hassocks shirt again after two hugely successful seasons at Burgess Hill Town.
It took just seven minutes for the Dockers to take the lead, Callum Connor setting the tone for the morning when he latched onto a through ball to finish past George Willett neatly.
One then became two on 17, the same player again doing the damage in familiar style. The ball resembled a hot potato whenever it was in Hassocks’ possession in the first half and it came as little surprise when Newhaven wrapped the game up before the half time tea had even been poured.
The Premier Division’s most dangerous marksman Lee Robinson added the Dockers’ third with 41 minutes on the clock and Joe Dryer made it four a minute before John Walker blew for the interval to send Hassocks to their first defeat of the season.
As already noted, the second 45 was much improved from a visiting point of view although it would have been hard for things to get much worse.
The Robins were helped slightly in that respect by Newhaven clearly taking their foot of their gas with things already sewn up.
Hassocks did manage to go close to pulling one back on a couple of occasions, Slaughter and Nick Pitcher firing inches wide and high respectively from distance while there were debuts from the substitutes bench for Under 21 players James Oliver and Oscar Wolfstrome.
Hassocks: George Willett; Bradley Tighe, Ashley Marsh, Rowan Wallis, Luke Akehurst; Bradley Bant, Josh Hawkes, Nick Pitcher, Spencer Slaughter, Jonno Melia; Nathan Miles.
Subs: Liam Benson, James Oliver, Oscar Wolfstrome (used), Jamie Hillwood, Reece Wickwar (unused).
