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Whaley Bridge 4-3 Denton Town
Written by Scirea   
Friday, 10 August 2018 08:44

07/08/2018

End to end excitement for large crowd at Horwich Park as Whaley's super late comeback enthrals a large home crowd to earn them their first 3 points of the season.

Whaley set the early tempo with Sutton particularly noticeable and dominating in the air all over the place and supported in the middle by the return of suspended Gilbride & Broome.

Early play saw the home side pretty much take control with the midfield linking up well with wide men Leadbetter and Burgess both causing problems down the flanks. Young Jacob O’Donnell cut inside from the right beating a couple of defenders before switching to his left foot only to see his shot rebound to safety off the foot of the post. Jamie Kay, also returning for his first game of the season, unleashed a 30 yard ‘right’ foot thunder bolt that gave the Denton keeper no chance; unfortunately it crashed against the bar for O’Donnell to react first but again his header hit the bar! One or two other chances ensued but no one managed to get on the end of balls flashing across the goal.

Unfortunately as seems to be the case all too often Whaley having been the dominant side early on and with the majority of chances went down against the run of play when a Heffernan header was volleyed in superbly by Denton’s dangerous Godfred. However Whaley responded well with the tricky O’Donnell beating his marker to curl a shot come cross over everybody’s head for Leadbetter to protect the ball over the line to make it 1-1. On a positive note Whaley were attacking at will but Denton’s forward line of Heffernan, Godfred and Costa were a constant threat.

Whaley fell behind again following a failure on the part of several players to win important tackles followed by a mistimed challenge affording Denton a free kick on the edge of the box that Bentley duly smashed into the top corner. With Denton so concerned about Suttons aerial threat a Drayson free kick was back-headed in by the dangerous Leadbetter; so all square at half time... 2-2.

Whaley came out the brighter coming close on several occasions with Burgess and Leadbetter firing in crosses from both flanks. O’Donnell was only inches away from a Leadbetter cross before a Denton counter attack split the Whaley defence to allow Hefferan a clear run in on goal to finish in style to put the home side behind again. Whaley had several set-plays but with all chances squandered it was ultimately a cool O’Donnell who turned on a sixpence in the area to fire Whaley back to level the scores; 3-3.

Late in the game another super O’Donnell run down the right ended with a crunching tackle but the ball fell to Burgess (great advantage by referee Alex Phillips) who attacked the full back, got to the bye line and smashed a low cross in for midfielder Gilbride to slot home his first for a spectacular win for Whaley.

Denton were unlucky today; Lee Bennett has got a very good side together and Denton must be title challengers. Superb display by officials Phillips, Martin & Lloyd with no controversy and sensible attitudes all-round in an end to end entertaining game of football played at a high tempo.

Man of the match for his two goals J O’Donnell followed closely by Sutton & Leadbetter; generally a good all round team performance but Whaley have to take early chances when in control and refrain from giving the ball away too cheaply and costly.

J Tattersall; J Drayson; O Toseland; A Hodges; J Kay; J Burgess; D Gilbride (1); B Sutton; J Broome S; Leadbetter (1;) J O’Donnell (2)

Subs W Bailey; J Gemmell; M Baldwin; J Arnfield (GK)

 
 
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