This was going to be a tricky game, but it was made more difficult when we were left with only 7 players, being without our goalkeeper and main defender due to illness/injury.

Added to that a lad who was making his debut meant this was an uphill struggle.

Having to utilise players out of position, it was important that we set the pace for the game.

We started brightly and gave Dover few opportunities and struck first with a brilliant 6 pass move, finished well by Ollie.

We increased our lead to 2 - 0 and were well worth the advantage.

We defended bravely and rode our luck, and were unlucky to score an own goal to reduce the deficit.

We continued to attack and press the game and soon regained our two goal advantage.

The second half was very even, Dover scoring to make it 3 - 2 and then we returned the favour to take a 4 - 2 advantage with around 10 minutes to go.

We continued to press to try and kill the game off and missed several reasonable openings.

Then we tired and Dover took full advantage scoring 3 unanswered goals.

We battled to the final whistle and twice hit the post in the last minute of the game.

Despite losing, all the boys can take great credit from their performance.

I feel that we have finally come of age in that we showed that we can now deal with the physical side of the game and more importantly are starting to control our gun ho attack.

Added to that some superb football, I strongly feel that good times are ahead and that with this sort of performance and a full squad available we will win more than we lose.

Scorers: Tom Barton 2, Oliver Hudson, Tyler Healey