Saints coach Ben Hunter left St Peter’s delighted with the three points, and also that the home club had done an excellent job in getting the game on considering the amount of rain that has fallen recently, but his side had put him through the wringer during the 90 minutes as they were unable to kill off Sylvans despite having the better of the chances.
On the balance of play, though, the black-and-whites eventually got what they deserved.
As it turned out, the match-winner was someone who might not have been available to Hunter had Guernsey FC’s fixture at Midhurst & Easebourne gone ahead.
But with the Green Lions given an unscheduled weekend off due to a waterlogged pitch in West Sussex, Ben Solway was able to return to Priaulx League action and – in front of a crowd including his GFC manager Tony Vance – it was he who popped up with a perfectly-judged looping header with the last play of the first half that proved to be decisive.
On a glorious sunny afternoon out west, the soft, energy-sapping pitch that had passed an 8am inspection turned the game into a good, old-fashioned battle with not an awful lot of pretty passing football but plenty of endeavour and full-blooded challenges that provided the neutral with value-for-money entertainment.
It took both sides a while to warm to their task, as if they were almost surprised to be playing considering the volume of water that had fallen in the preceding days, and it was another GFC regular, Simon Arnold, who sparked it into life with the first noteworthy shot of the game in the eighth minute, which was deflected over the bar.
Soon, there were chances coming at both ends.
In the space of 30 seconds Max Johnson saw a drive blocked by Nick Batiste’s legs before he blazed another shot over the bar as Saints made light of playing up the hill and into the breeze while the older of the two Solway brothers in the visiting backline got in the way of a Euan Melrose effort as the ball dropped to him from a long throw-in.
Johnson was proving a willing runner for Saints and he cleared the bar again with a more difficult chance on the run after Alex Roussel had won the ball in midfield. Then, five minutes later, Sam Gilman made a fine challenge on Sam Hall just as he was pulling the trigger inside the penalty area.
The visitors were getting up a head of steam and Batiste was called into a flying stop by Roussel moments before Saints took the lead on 28min. when Glenn Le Tissier finished smartly on the turn at the far post after Eti Le Prevost’s long throw from the left had been flicked on twice.
However, all the work that had gone into taking the lead was immediately wasted when a mix up at the back saw Saints leaving James Ravenscroft’s diagonal ball into the box to each other to deal with, and Arnold snuck in at the back post to slot home the equaliser on the half-hour.
Roussel was within a couple of inches of restoring the lead, but he was just unable to get on the end of Johnson’s ball fired across the face of goal, and as half-time approached the midfielder scuffed a left-footed shot wide after being picked out by Hall’s pass-of-the-match contender.
But just when it seemed the sides would go into the interval all-square, Sylvans gave away a needless corner in the second minute of injury time and Le Prevost’s deep delivery was met by Solway who nodded the ball back in the direction from whence it came and it looped over a crowd then dropped inside the post.
The second half was a proper arm wrestle with chances largely at a premium, though Batiste was continually tested by inswinging corners with both Le Prevost and Hall fancying their chances of scoring direct from the quadrant.
Seb Sheppard had to come up with a vital save at the other end midway through the half, though, as Arnold drilled a low free-kick goalwards which took a deflection, making the keeper’s intervention even better.
Having come on for the last quarter of an hour, Max Hamon had a couple of decent opportunities to make the game safe for Saints and they went abegging, but fortunately for the visitors they did not prove costly, and they are now within three points of the top of the Priaulx League.
