ARCHIBALD HAT-TRICK BLOWS ROBINS AWAY
The young guns of Hassocks recent resurgence was bought to a crashing end as they were hammed 4-0 at home by Eastbourne Town on Tuesday night.
“The best 45 minutes we have seen from an opponent so far this season,” was Phil Wickwar’s take on a first half in which the visitors stormed into a 3-0 lead with a performance which simply blew the Robins away.
The result moved Town to within seven points of Horsham YMCA – who Hassocks host in their next game – although they have played a game more than the current league leaders.
“When you look at Eastbourne’s squad and starting line up, it’s little wonder they can give performances like that,” Wickwar added. “But I think you have to credit to our players, they never gave up when they could quite easily have rolled over.”
“It’s valuable experience for the four Under 18s we ended the game with and the other young guys in the team and hopefully that will stand us in good stead for the future.”
Hassocks do have a glut of talented youngsters coming through and they’d have done well to learn something from Evan Archibald’s performance.
The Town striker netted a first half hat-trick which put the game to bed, taking his tally to 14 for the season in the process.
The first two came inside of 10 minutes, a header from a corner after three and a nice finish on the angle after eight – although there were questions about both defending and goalkeeping for that one.
It looked like a cricket score might be on the cards at that point but Hassocks changed to five across the midfield which stemmed the flow and they even created some chances of their own, the best coming when Greg Nessling was forced into tipping a Jake Lindsey curler around the post.
Lindsey was again a lively outlet for the Robins throughout and there were also encouraging cameos from Under 21 players Joe Russell and Connor Bradley who both made their first appearances for the first team this season.
It was more slack marking from a corner two minutes before the break that allowed Archibald to complete his treble and Hassocks were minutes away from taking a credible 0-0 draw from the second half when Will Broomfield scored an unfortunate own goal.
Wickwar felt that his side deserved to score at the right end but putting the ball in the back of the net is still proving to be a real problem for Hassocks and they remain the divisions third lowest scorers after recording a twelfth blank of the campaign.
Those struggles in front of goal will be bought sharply into context when YM are in town in four days time with their title push being led by the 17 goals of former Hassocks favourite Phil Johnson. Oh, how Hassocks could do with a player of his quality right now.
Hassocks: Haig Kingston; Will Broomfield, Josh Tuck, Jordan Badger, Ben O’Leary; Harry Mills, Spencer Slaughter, Connor Bradley, Jake Lindsey; Jack Wilkins, Michael Death.
Subs: Jake Atherton, Joe Russell, Kieran Dimelow (used).
