Latest match report

First Team reports | Reserve Team reports | Youth Team reports

Supersub Leach secures vital win - 26/1/08

United's most complete performance for more than three months was fully rewarded this afternoon by a two goal victory over promotion contenders Staines Town at the Pilot Field in Tony Dolby's first game in charge of the Club. Goals in the first and last minutes of the second half took United to an ultimately convincing and well deserved win, the opener from joint leading scorer Ade Olorunda, and the clincher on his debut from new loan signing Danny Leach, who scored with his first touch of the ball after replacing Ade for the closing moments. The visitors offered surprisingly little, given their lofty league placing, with Lee Worgan called into serious action on only one occasion, aided by a dominant display from the defence in front of him, which was mirrored in almost every other department as well.

A new manager does not necessarily mean a completely new line-up, as evidenced by the fact that today's starting eleven showed only two changes from that selected by John Lambert against AFC Hornchurch two weeks previously. Jimmy Elford and Ade Olorunda, both of whom had been unavailable for John's final game in caretaker control, returned in place of the less experienced Ashley Paine and Jack Franklin, each named amongst the substitutes. Kevin Rose was absent serving a one match suspension, while Danny Ellis dropped out of contention, as did Matt Maclean, available again after being banned himself a fortnight earlier. Staines suffered a huge blow in the pre-match warm-up, with the Premier Division's leading scorer Mark Nwokeji aggravating a hamstring injury that forced him to sit out the contest, breaking his successful attacking partnership with Marc Charles-Smith. The former Leatherhead striker, and former Metropolitan Police midfielder Adrian Toppin, had scored the goals that enabled the Swans to twice hold League Two side Stockport County to draws in the first round of this season's FA Cup, with Staines claiming a famous victory on penalties in front of the Sky Television cameras. One of the legacies of that cup run was for Staines to have fallen behind with their league fixtures, but even so, they remained handily placed in the top four of the table going into this contest, with United still languishing one place off the bottom.

The two teams appeared to spend much of the first half sizing each other up, resulting in a poor spectacle, with precious little attacking play of note. United fashioned the only chance in a tedious opening thirty minutes, a Sam Adams volley from the edge of the area, which struck a defender long before it would have reached keeper Shaun Allaway. On the whole though, the contest was essentially a non-event for half an hour, although the closing stages of the first period finally saw a few more opportunities, Ade heading just wide from a Lee Carey cross, and brother Tim narrowly clearing the crossbar with an acrobatic volley after Staines had failed to deal with a Danny Spice long throw. Four minutes before the break, the visitors registered their first attempt on goal, Howard Newton turning past his marker and stinging Lee Worgan's palms with a fiercely struck shot from twenty yards, but United went straight down the other end to test Allaway for the first time, another long throw from Danny being flicked on by Ade, with Russell throwing himself at a downward header that the keeper gathered low to his left.

A tepid encounter was badly in need of a spark to liven it up, but it got one within sixty seconds of the restart, the best move of the match leading to the opening goal. Russell did well to win the ball on the left hand side and advanced down the flank, exchanging passes with Sam and delivering an excellent cross to the near post for Ade to control, and turn past Staines skipper Matt Flitter, in one movement, before firing a low shot across Allaway and into the far corner for his eighth goal of the campaign. The early strike seemed almost instantly to evoke a reaction from the visitors, who suddenly began to pass the ball with greater purpose and show glimpses of the form that had elevated them to the ranks of play-off challengers. For ten minutes, the United goal was kept under some reasonably consistent pressure, with Lee Worgan making one outstanding save to block Gareth Risbridger's well struck effort from the edge of the area. Newton dragged the rebound tamely wide of the target and later saw another twenty yard shot blocked on its way to goal, resulting in loud appeals for handball that were dismissively waved away by the referee, and the Swans' hopes of getting back into the contest seemed to fade away in that incident, with United assuming control for the final thirty minutes and pressing for a decisive second goal. Sam almost obliged with a dipping left foot volley from twenty-five yards that bounced to safety off the top of the crossbar, and he then had a half-hearted penalty appeal turned down after tumbling a little theatrically under challenge from defender Danny Gordon. Moments later, he spurned a glorious chance to make the game safe, after the industrious Antonio Gonnella forced an error out of Marcel Nugent and cut the ball back to him on the edge of the six yard box, only for Sam to miss the ball completely, watching it run on instead to Ade, whose effort was brilliantly blocked by Allaway, still from point blank range, with the keeper also keeping out Ade's follow-up effort from a narrower angle. Lee Carey fired harmlessly over the bar, after Ade had forced Allaway to spill Danny Spice's hanging centre, while Ade himself headed disappointingly over the bar from Tim's pinpoint cross, and United were looking a shade edgy as stoppage time drew near, and Staines won a handful of free kicks in threatening situations. The visitors then won a corner in the final minute of the ninety, but United managed to clear towards Sam, who in turn played the ball down the right, inviting Lee Carey to chase an apparently lost cause, with Nugent dropping back to cover for the Swans. However, in electing to play the ball back to Allaway, the left back managed to underhit the pass, and could only watch on as Danny Leach, on the field for a mere ninety seconds after replacing the ailing Ade, seized possession, calmly rounded the keeper, and finished with ease from an acute angle.

Danny's timely arrival on the scene not only clinched United's first win in seven matches, but it also capped their first two goal performance since the Sussex Senior Cup defeat at Lewes on 7 November, and their first in the league since the 3-3 draw at Hendon on 27 October. It also brought United back to within a couple of points of moving out of the relegation zone, with every team in the lower half of the table still in realistic danger of sliding into the bottom four were they to suffer a couple of bad results in a row. United have it all to do though, and they are off in search of that elusive first away league win of the season at Margate next week.

Match facts	Efforts on target	Efforts off target	Free kicks conceded	Corners won	Offsides against
Hastings United	7	6	15	4	1
Staines Town	2	2	18	3	2

Hastings United (4-4-2)							Staines Town (4-4-2)
1 Lee Worgan							1 Shaun Allaway
2 Danny Spice							2 Adam Thompson
3 Jimmy Elford (c)							3 Marcel Nugent
4 Rhys Whyborne							4 Danny Gordon
5 Nathan Russell							5 Matt Flitter (c)
6 Russell Eldridge							6 Gareth Risbridger
7 Antonio Gonnella							7 Lewis Cook
8 Tim Olorunda							8 Adrian Toppin
9 Ade Olorunda							9 Howard Newton
10 Sam Adams							10 Marc Charles-Smith
11 Lee Carey							11 Victor Asombang
Substitutes
12 Frankie Sawyer							12 Kerem Bashkal (for Toppin 77)
14 Ashley Paine							14 Mark Nwokeji
15 Danny Leach (for A Olorunda 88)							15 Dwain Clarke (for Asombang 62)
16 Jack Franklin							16 Dave Sargent
GK Jani Seitsonen							GK James Courtnage

Attendance 422

Referee Mike McCoy (Worthing)

Assistants Darren Eaton (Hove) & Baris Erguven (Brighton)