Tough First league Game for the 3's at home

Lewes Men's 3s vs Brighton and Hove Men's 4s.

A 2-1 loss for Lewes at home to open the season.

Brighton opened the scoring midway through the first half after a poorly defended short corner against Lewes. A failure to clear the ball at the breakdown resulted in the ball hitting the Lewes backboard (0-1). After this Lewes came back strong with the trio of Casselden, Pulley and Fewster in the middle creating a number of promising chances, it was clear that this match was far from over. However the score line remained Lewes 0, Brighton 1 at half time.

After the half Lewes came out reinvigorated and with the half time instructions fresh in their minds. They applied considerable pressure and after 15 minutes of play were rewarded with an equaliser. A great run created and then taken into the D by Davenport, the ball was then skilfully offloaded to Fewster to evade the keeper and score (1-1).

After this Lewes changed up a gear, with the Brighton defence repelling wave after wave of attacks, special mention just go to the Brighton keeper without whom Brighton would surely not have kept Lewes from scoring. After one strong attack, Brighton turned the ball over in their D and drove up the pitch on the counter attack. Fitch, Picken and Appleton raced after them, but with a cracking offload in the Lewes D to evade the keeper, Brighton scored a four on three counter (1-2).

4 minutes of play left, and Lewes reset in their half. Lewes continued to apply the pressure but could not break through the seemingly impenetrable Brighton defence. In the dying seconds of the game Lewes won a short corner. The final whistle blew making this the last play of the game. Sherwood injected the ball with pinpoint accuracy to Picken waiting to stop at the top of the D, for De Souza to flick. The ball glanced off of a Brighton body, another short! There were a total of 4 short corners in this closing passage of play, with De Souza striking the cross bar at one point, but the Brighton defence held strong. Lewes 1, Brighton 2.

Special mention must go to our Lewes man of the match, Joe Fitch who had an excellent game at left back. With standout performances for Picken and 'The Wall' Bullmore. This was a hard fought game with nobody able to pick a winner until the final whistle. A promising performance for the start of the season, although attacking short corner plays must be a focus for the next training session!

Match report by C. Appleton