Sat. 13th October. FA Vase Saltash United 2 Westbury United 1

Westbury’s FA Vase dream is over after a poor performance on a windy day in Saltash.

Westbury made the long trip down to Saltash in a positive mood after an excellent 1-0 win over Saltash’s arch rivals Plymouth Parkway last weekend. The rain had passed by the time the game kicked off but the wind was still very strong, making the conditions very difficult.

The game started pretty scrappy, with neither team able to get hold of the ball too long as they tried to adjust to the tricky conditions.

After 21 minutes, a long punt down field from the Saltash right back position was miss-controlled by Jordan Pinder. Saltash’s Richards nicked in ahead of Pinder, drove past him down the right wing and delivered a cross which was headed clear by Ryan Baggs, but only as far as the Saltash’s Barker  who guided a shot through the legs of Steve Hulbert and passed Baggs to sneak in just inside the far post to give Saltash a 1-0 lead.

Another long punt down the field, this time from Rickard in the Saltash goal, resulted in  Richards getting goal side of Pinder. Pinder decided to try and tackle him but brought him down approximately 40 yards from goal. Thankfully Ian Jeffery had come across from left back, so the referee only issued a yellow card. The first half finished 1-0.

Westbury got straight into action after the break. On the 50-minute mark Morgan Skipp picked the ball up in the centre circle and delivered a pass towards Joe Stradling who was racing clear down the right. But a Saltash defender blocked the pass, and his intervention only managed to guide the ball to Callum Demkiv, who was lurking on the shoulder of the centre back. Demkiv’s first touch took him past the defender; he had a  second touch in the middle of the D on the edge of the box and his third touch was a lovely strike that lifted the ball over the advancing keeper into the middle of the goal to make it 1-1.

Ricky Hulbert had a shout for a penalty waved away by the referee. a free kick from Jeffery was well controlled by Hulbert with his back to goal on the edge of the box. He turned and took a shot on goal which hit Saltash’s Russell on the arm as he took a spinning jump to block the shot ,but the referee waved away Westbury’s appeals.

Brandon Sawyer, making his second appearance for Westbury, pulled off an excellent save on 62 minutes. Saltash’s Maddison surged forward and unleashed a powerful shot from about 30 yards, but Sawyer got two strong hands to it and pushed it wide for a corner. The resulting corner was whipped in and managed to deceive Sawyer and go straight in to the goal, for Saltash to once again take the lead with a 2-1 score line.

Westbury huffed and puffed for the remaining half an hour but couldn’t create any meaningful chances. The 2-1 result was a fair reflection of the game. Westbury get the chance to get back into form this coming Tuesday when they are playing away to Royal Wootton Bassett in the Wiltshire Senior Cup, followed by a home league fixture against Hallen on the 20th October.

MOTM: Callum Demkiv. Team: B Sawyer, R Baggs, I Jeffery, W Stead, J Pinder, S Hulbert©, M Skipp, J Stradling, R Hulbert, F Allen, C Demkiv. Subs: D Kovacs, J Kirkpatrick (used) L Smith (Unused).