A poor second half performance led to Cowes Sports FC slumping to their 8th successive defeat on Tuesday night.
The Yachtsmen are now without a win since 28th September.
Experienced Ed Hatt returned as goalkeeper for the visit of Lymington. but a number of other experienced players were absent from the starting line up, including Euan Cranwell, Morgan Perrin, Ash Brett and Finn Phillips.
The first half was a fairly even contest with chances falling to both teams. The Yachtsmen had their first opportunity to score in the 19th minute, when Michael McEnery had a shot cleared off
the line. Then Jimmy Wykes had a couple of good opportunities to score, just failing to connect with a cross in the 38th minute, and having a shot blocked in the 41st minute.
The first half was brought to an abrupt end when the Westwood Park floodlights failed.
Half time: Cowes Sports 0-0 Lymington Town
The second half saw the visitors running rampant, with few counter chances for the home side. Sam House opened the scoring for Lymington in the 51st minute, when he managed to get his toe to the ball in front of a defender, to give the away side a 0-1 advantage. 4 minutes later, Steve Flynn punished some sloppy defending from Cowes to make the score 0-2 to the visitors.
In the 60th minute there were some angry scenes after a Lymington player appeared to have been elbowed in the face, resulting in a yellow card for Ji Nash and a Lymington player in the subsequent melee. The Yachtsmen made a number of substitutions in an attempt to get back into the game: Chis Elliot coming on for Ben Snow, Darren Williams for Jimmy Wykes and Scott McFarlane for Michael McEnery.
The Yachtsmen pressed forward, leaving themselves increasingly exposed at the back, for which they were punished by the visiting side. First, Ali Zitany hit the post. Then, in the 81st minute, Tim Stephenson directed a glancing header in off the post to give the visitors a 0-3 lead. Finally, Dominic Falcao shot through a crowd of defenders in the 86th minute, to complete the misery for Cowes and send the visitors home across the Solent with a comprehensive 0-4 victory.
Cowes Sports 0-4 Lymington Town
Cowes Sports: Hatt, C White, D. Sexton, J White, A Bryan, B Snow (C Elliot), T Dye, A White, J Nash, M McEnery (S McFarlane), J Wykes (D Williams)
Defeat leaves the Yachtsmen second-from-bottom in the Wessex Premier, having been leapfrogged by Solent University, who won 3-4 at Portland United. Cowes Sports travel to bottom club Amesbury Town on Saturday, in a must win fixture in their battle against relegation to Wessex League One.
Following Tuesday night’s defeat, Cowes Sports has announced that reserve team manager, Max Draper, will be taking over responsibility for the first team, assisted by Steve Taylor. Steve
Rutter, who heads Chelsea Academy at Cowes Enterprise College, has resigned from his first team role and will be given the position of Director of Football at the club.
