A brilliant start to the season for Westbury Utd was made, with a second 3-1 victory and excellent all-round performance in perfect conditions at Meadow Lane.
Much of the first half was forgettable, with both sides cancelling each other out due to a mixture of strong defending and poor decision-making when attacks got going. The closest either came in that time was when Sam Jordan headed Ricky Hulbert’s cross onto the roof of the net. At the other end, Ed Baldy was only called upon to catch Dan Price’s sliced clearance.
Play opened up towards the break and United forced several corners. The second of these was accurately delivered by new signing Ryan Bole and met by Sam Jordan, who scored on his home debut with a header at the back post to make it 1-0.
The second half was a much more watchable affair and Westbury put together a great move on 55 that led to doubling their lead from the penalty spot . Ollie Webb cleverly switched the ball to Sam Jordan on the right wing and his cross to Ricky Hulbert saw the striker bundled over and the penalty awarded; Jason Henley stepped up and scored confidently. Visiting midfielder Connor Biggins became heavily involved in the next 10 minutes, firstly clattering into Webb and escaping with a yellow card then, as his side began to threaten, he forced a fine save out of Baldy but was on hand to shoot again and reduce Odd Down’s arrears to 2-1.
The combination of Sam Jordan and Ricky Hulbert looks set to be a success and they linked up again, with keeper George Dorrington saving Hulbert’s header.
Odd Down came within a whisker of drawing level in spectacular style when Harvey hit a fierce long ranger that whistled just over the bar.
It was becoming tricky to choose a star man until Henley whipped in a brilliant corner on 80 minutes from which Webb had a header blocked on the line and Dan Kovacs smashed in the rebound to clinch the points.
United comfortably saw out the remaining minutes against 10 men because the visitors had a player sin binned, the first such instance in a Westbury match under the new rules.
TEAM; Ed Baldy, Jason Henley, Ryan Bole, Steve Hulbert, Dan Price, Matt Jones, Jordan Pinder, Ollie Webb, Ricky Hulbert, Sam Jordan, Joe Stradling SUBS; Dan Kovacs, Dan Jordan, Mark Robinson (used) Joe Kirkpatrick, Lewis Porter (unused). STAR MAN; Jason Henley
