In any game but maybe especially in the first game of the season an early goal is very welcome and so it proved in this FA Cup tie, Mousehole’s first competitive game of a new term. With only four pre-season friendlies behind them and four new faces in the starting line-up there was a little trepidation about how the match would go.

Those fears disappeared after just one minute when one new boy, Max Cook, curled a cross in to the box. It eventually fell to the returning Tallan Mitchell. He surged towards goal only to be brought down by an waggling defensive leg. We’ll never know if the referee would have awarded the penalty this deserved because within sixty of his debut Liam Prynn had scored when the ball ran loose.

Chances came a plenty over the next forty four minutes but the lead refused to extend. Indeed, there were a few scares as the visitors threatened to draw level. None of their chances would have scored high on the Xg charts but they enough to remind Mousehole that this was not a friendly.

Too often it felt like the Seagulls’ build up was a little slow so that by the time the chance came the Bridgwater defence were all behind the ball squeezing the gaps. One nil up at half time was probably just about deserved but both sides knew, as it so often the case, that the next goal was vital.

The second half carried on in much the same vein as the first with Mousehole having most of the possession, about seventy percent, and most of the chances but not being able to deliver the killer blow. Bridgwater were still getting enough of a sniff of goal to keep the home fans on the edge of their seats.

With only twenty minutes left the game was still in the balance and Jake Ash had just made two changes with Hayden Black and Tim Nixon coming on for Massey and Mitchell. This change produced the extra energy needed on a hot day to push Mousehole over the line and after seventy two minutes the lead was doubled. Ed Harrison, another debutant, played the ball out to Hayden Turner on the left. He surged towards the box, cut in, and curled a shot above the keeper in to the top of the net.

Within seven more minutes the lead was doubled again with a brace from Ed Harrison to add to his assist. The came when he received the ball on the edge of the box and hammered it home beyond a despairing keeper. The final was a perfect example of simplicity combined with panache. A long ball out from Chenoweth was nodded on by Prynn to Tim Nixon. In the box, he back heeled it to Harrison who stroked it home. Five seconds from keeper at one end the back of the net at the other. Devastating.

All that was left now was for Mousehole to keep their clean sheet and as so often happens it fell to the brilliance of Ollie Chenoweth. With moments remaining a game Bridgwater put together their best move of the match and engineered a chance just a few yards out. Most keepers would have let the chance just happen but Chenoweth rushed out and blocked the shot. Still the best.

A strong start to the season and a cup run in the offing. The next round sees us away to today’s opponents meaning we play them twice in four days.