Tavistock 1 – 1 Mousehole
For the third time in a week the Seagulls drew a match one all. For the third time in a week the Seagulls had to come from behind after a disappointing first half.
With three ex-Tavi players in the Mousehole squad this was something of a reunion but unlike pub gatherings with old school friends it was anything but a happy night out. Tavistock are nailed to the bottom of the league table having only won three times this season. That the last of those three victories was in October and the one before that was at Trungle was not lost on anyone.
All teams have bogey teams and for Mousehole, Tavistock fall into that slot. It doesn’t seem to matter where the two teams sit in the table, or what the occasion, it is a rare day when the Seagulls get the better of the Lambs. With neither team in good form presently it was almost impossible to predict how this game would go but the early exchanges indicated that the hex would continue to haunt Mousehole.
From the off, the hosts looked like the team in mid-table. They were winning all the fifty-fifties, finding their men with passes and repelling any Mousehole advances with ease. They looked comfortable on the ball and very far from a team almost certain to go down. Maybe this was part of their new manager bounce, or maybe it was just because they were playing Mousehole.
It’s been very rare recently that teams have to do something special to score against the Seagulls and so it was here on a chilly night in the Devonian heartland. Tavistock could have taken the lead sooner. In the tenth minute a diving Scott Simmons cleared one off the line with his chest. They eventually did, ten minutes before the break. A long ball from defence had Jack Calver, starting for the first time since the summer, turning in his own box. He should have whacked it clear but Jack’s too good a player to resort to that and so he tried to bring it down even under pressure from a marauding forward.
His touch was good but the ball dribbled away into the forward’s stride as Calver slipped. Free in the box he found a colleague who only need to tap it home. And tap it home he did. He we were playing against the league’s ‘worst’ team and we were one nil down and hoping it wouldn’t get worse before the break. If it truly is darkest before dawn then surely this was pitch black and the sun was about to come up.
With Jake Ash suffering from a cold, a result of which meant he was under doctor’s orders not to shout, he refrained from entering the changing room at half time. This saved his voice and possibly saved a few teacups. It’s unclear who took on the manager’s mantle in his absence but whoever it was, they were unable to catalyse the required transformation. There was more urgency about the Seagulls’ work but as in the previous two matches there wasn’t the guile to break down a stubborn defence.
Mousehole huffed and puffed but for the umpteenth time this season it was not until the last ten minutes that they were able to make the breakthrough. It wasn’t pretty and it won’t win any awards but Liam Prynn’s strike in the eighty third minute brought some form of relief to the visiting fans. Hayden Turner pulled a low cross into the box, Mark Goldsworthy had a shot blocked and it ricocheted skywards. When it fell it was met by the hammer that is Liam Prynn’s right boot. It flew into the roof of the net much to the relief of all aligned with Mousehole.
There were only three chances thereafter and they all fell to the home side. Thanks, as so often, to Ollie Chenoweth, Tavistock did not register again and the points were shared. And here comes a final sentence that we’ve seen before and we’ll see again. Whether that turns out to be a point won, or two lost will only be known after the last game of the season.
