Men's football news
Written by: Stuart
A one-sided game saw Lewes eliminated from the Sussex Senior Cup after a 3-0 defeat at local rivals Worthing, reports Tom Harper.
Tony Russell made a number of changes to the side after last weekend’s win at Bowers & Pitsea, but still named a strong team as the Rooks looked to progress to the quarter-finals of the competition.
The hosts, currently sitting top of the Isthmian Premier League, started brightly and saw Dayshonne Golding miss the target when off balance after a short corner found him in space in the area.
Ollie Tanner had Lewes’s first chance, sending an effort straight at Harrison Male in the Worthing goal.
It was the hosts who were looking more of a threat though, and Lewis Carey was forced into a smart save to deny Golding after a mis-placed Will Salmon pass.
Worthing were handed a great opportunity to take the lead on 22 minutes, as Ayo Olukoga was adjudged to have fouled Joel Colbran in the penalty area.
Ollie Pearce took the penalty and sent Carey the wrong way with an emphatic spot-kick that went in off the underside of the bar.
The hosts doubled their lead on 35 minutes, with Callum Kealy converting a Reece Myles-Meekums cross from close range at the end of an excellent passing move.
Lewes started the second half with plenty of purpose but were unable to trouble Male, a Tanner strike from the edge of the box that went just wide of the far post being the closest they came to reducing the arrears.
Worthing always looked capable of adding to their lead and did just that on 67 minutes as Pearce ran in behind the Lewes defence down the right and sent a superb finish across Carey and in off the inside of the far post.
The game understandably fizzled out at this point, although Lewes did come close to scoring a late consolation through Bradley Pritchard, who won the ball back high up the pitch and took it past Male, only to be denied by a superb last-ditch clearance from Aarran Racine.
After the game Rooks boss Tony Russell was still upbeat, “We made 7 changes from the win last Saturday as we wanted to look at a few players plus give the boys some minutes who hadn’t played much recently and it proved too much against a very strong Worthing team. We brought on Klassy and Raz either side of half time and we saw an improvement in the second period with Ollie and Pritch both going close but overall we can have no complaints with the result as Worthing ran out worthy winners”.
Highlights of the game can be viewed here.
The Rooks will hope to put this result behind them when they return to league action with a trip to Horsham on the 27th December, kick-off at 3pm.
Worthing: Male, Colbran, Tutt, Mthunzi, Racine, Myles-Meekums (Seager 75), Golding (Webber 64), Kealy, Pearce (Diallo 76), J. Starkey, O. Starkey.
Unused Subs: Budd, Armstrong.
Booked: Seager.
Lewes: Carey, Gillela (Colombie 68), Carlse, Weaire, Salmon, Olukoga (Klass 38), Pritchard, Tanner, Maloney, Parker, Dalling (De-Graft 56).
Unused Subs: Taylor, Allen.
Booked: None.
Attendance: 884