NO POINTS BUT MORE PRAISE FOR HASSOCKS’ BATTLING SPIRIT
Last time Hassocks faced Horley Town, it was an afternoon to forget for the Robins. Anthony Jupp’s side came to the Beacon back in September in the first qualifying round of the Buildbase FA Vase. Both sides had made decent starts to the season in all competitions and a close game seemed in prospect.
How wrong could you be? 90 chastening minutes later and Hassocks’ hopes of a decent run in the national competition had been pulverised, the visitors cruising to an easy 6-1 success under the Mid Sussex sun. In the intervening three months, Hassocks have won just three times.
There is a feeling though that the Robins may have turned a corner in recent weeks, going down to single goal defeats against Newhaven and Peacehaven & Telscombe before recording a first win in nine away at East Preston.
Another clash with the inflictors of Hassocks’ heaviest defeat of the season would test that theory and although the Robins didn’t managed to add any points to their total, they did give Horley a real run for their money before succumbing to a 2-0 defeat.
“Hassocks did really well, a massive improvement on last time we met,” Jupp said afterwards. “The first half was very tight, for sure. But play like that for the rest of the season and I think they’ll be fine.”
Jupp isn’t the first opposition figure to state his belief that Hassocks will get out of the mire by the end of the season. Both Crawley Down Gatwick and Peacehaven had praise for the Robins after they’d narrowly managed to defeat Mark Dalgleish’s men in the past month.
But kind words don’t keep you up. Only points do that and Hassocks know that they’ll need to probably quadruple their current total of 10 over the course of the second half of the season if they are to fulfil the positive predictions of recent opponents.
Having a settled starting XI would help in that regard, a luxury that Dalgleish is slowly starting to have again after a terrible run of luck with injuries and availability.
There were just the two changes from side who picked up that vital win at the Lashmar last weekend. Alex Spinks and James Littlejohn were both unavailable with their places were taken by Harvey Enticknap and Jamie Hillwood.
As Jupp eluded too, the first half was a close-run affair. It was an opening 45 minutes that was largely dominated by defences with good opportunities few and far between.
That was reflected in the fact that of the four candidates for Hassocks’ Supporters’ Man-of-the-Match, three of them were defenders with Harry Mills, Jack Troak and Dan Turner all making the frame.
The other was Liam Benson who put in a typically hard-working shift in attack, the only thing missing from his performance being a goal.
Benson is yet to net in 15 appearances since returning for a third spell with Hassocks from Steyning Town a month into the campaign.
The Barrowmen are the next visitors to the Beacon in a week’s time; there’d be no better occasion for Benson to get his account up and running than against his former club in what will be the first meeting between the two since 1995.
Back to the action in hand and it was Russell Harvey who took advantage of one of the few first half chances to opening the scoring with 15 minutes on the clock. Tony Halsey added the second six minutes after the restart with his 10th goal of the campaign.
There was lots of honest second half endeavour from the Robins but they weren’t able to find a way back into the game, failing to score against Horley for the second time in the league this season after defeat on the opening day at the New Defence, also by two goals to nil.
Horley looked like they could be dark horses for the title on that day – their debut fixture in the Southern Combination League following a sideways move from the Combined Counties.
And this result helps keep them on the cusp of the title race, leaving Town 10 points behind first placed Eastbourne Town with two games in hand and a trip to the Saffrons to come on Tuesday night.
Win those three and they’ll be within a point of the long-term leaders. Suddenly, the dark horses aren’t looking quite so dark.
Clearly, Hassocks were up against quality opposition who they pushed close, just as they have in recent weeks. The challenge now is to turn these sorts of performances into points.
Hassocks: Charlie Pugh; Harvey Blake, Dan Turner, Harry Mills, Jack Troak; Harvey Enticknap, Will Boomfield; Jamie Hillwood, Liam Benson, Blagomir Mastagarkov; Phil Johnson.
Subs: Arni Kublickas, Alfie Loversidge, Luke Marshall, Dan Stokes.
