Cowes Sports were narrowly beaten by 3rd-placed Fareham Town at the Zilch Waste Stadium yesterday evening (Tuesday).
The Yachtsmen made 2 changes to the starting line-up for the visit of Fareham with John McKie and Jordan Cook replacing Connor Kelly and Scott McFarlane.
The game began cagily with both sides playing possession football from the back.
The 1st clear chance for Cowes came in the 16th minute when Jordan Cook beat the offside trap only for his shot to be comfortably saved by the Creeksiders’ keeper.
Fareham took the lead in the 37th minute through Alfie Bridgeman, who converted a Liam Robinson pass (0-1).
Cowes came close to finding an equaliser 3 minutes from half time when McKie struck the upright at the back post after Jake Wright had sent the ball across the face of the goal.
Half time: Cowes Sports 0-1 Fareham Town
Jordan Browne was unlucky not have levelled the scores in the 54th minute when his goal bound header was blocked by a defender.
Captain McKie then conjured up the equalising goal by beating Fareham keeper McCarthy to a loose ball from a Ryan Hughes free kick (1-1).
The Creeksiders regained the lead a minute later through a 30-yard screamer into the top corner of Ed Hatt’s goal from Ethan Quinlan (1-2).
Cowes made a series of late substitutions with George Carter-Knight coming on for Jordan Cook, Scott McFarlane replacing Jordan Browne and Charlie Marsek taking the place of Jared Tout-Walters.
However, the Yachtsmen were unable to breakdown a resolute and well-organised Fareham defence in the closing stages of the game.
The task became even harder for the home side when forced to play the final 10 minutes with 10 men after captain and goal scorer John McKie was sinbinned for an over-emotional reaction to an offside ruling.
Full Time: Cowes Sports 1-2 Fareham Town
Cowes Sports: Hatt, Hughes, Dempsey, Chase, Oatley, Phillips, McKie (c), Cook, Browne, Wright, Tout-Walters Subs: McFarlane, Carter-Knight, Marsek, Sanderson, G. Bridi
The Yachtsmen remain 11th in the Wessex Premier Division with 38 points from 31 games. A win would have seen Cowes rise to 9th spot.
After the game, co-manager Mark Woodhouse expressed his frustration at not picking up the points against Fareham, saying:
“This game showed how far we’ve come, and I’m frustrated because I think we had enough to beat a team that’s in the playoffs.
“I think the lads we’ve got are more than capable of making that jump – we just need to do some fantastically hard work over the summer.
“There are certain aspects of the game we did really well tonight. But in and around the boxes, they proved why they are top 4 and we are midtable.
“We’ve got to make that little bit of extra quality in and around the box and translate possession into goals and points and victories.
“That’s 2 games in a row where we dominated the football but haven’t won either of them.”
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