Normal service is quickly resumed
Molyneaux delighted as Gosport rediscover their resolve
Lee Molyneaux hailed his side’s return to normality after the midweek aberration against lowly Dorchester.
The Gosport Borough boss was delighted with a clean sheet in the hard-fought 1-0 victory over Harrow Borough at Privett Park.
The game was a complete opposite to the previous Tuesday’s remarkable 4-4 draw on the same ground against Dorchester. That had end-to-end excitement, lots of goals, red cards, high drama. The Harrow game had none of that.
Molyneaux had declared the Dorchester result ‘a great advert for non-league football.’
No-one would be foolish to say the same about the Harrow match.
Saturday’s result, though, saw Gosport register an eighth clean sheet in 20 Southern League Premier South games. Delve a little deeper, and an incredible statistic shows they have only conceded more than one goal on just three occasions.
Once was a 2-0 home loss to Poole in September, another the 3-2 win at lofty Tiverton, and the third against Dorchester.
At the other end, Borough have only scored more than two goals in a league game three times - one on the opening day against Taunton, once at Tiverton and the other against Dorchester.
The 4-4 draw, Borough are anything but the great entertainers of the Southern League, and the manager likes it that way.
‘I said to the players that wasn’t us against Dorchester,’ said Molyneaux. ‘That’s not how I want us to play.
‘We were too expansive and left ourselves too exposed at the back. Against Harrow we were much more resolute, much more our usual selves.
‘That was much more how I want a Lee Molyneaux team to perform.’
As the stats indicate, Molyneaux is attempting to bring the smiles back to Privett Park using a solid defence as a starting point.
‘All the promotion-winning sides I have played in were built on a strong defence,’ he recalled. ‘That was the basis to back-to-back promotions when I was at Gosport and back-to-back promotions at Havant.
‘I have seen it work in successful teams I have played in, so why would I want to change it?’
Gosport carved out the best chances of the first half, with Liam Robinson somehow failing to convert Rory Williams’ low cross across the six-yard box wide the best of them.
Harrow rarely threatened, though targetman Marc Charles-Smith should really have done better than to head a near post cross from Michael Bryan wide of Ben Dudzinski’s goal after just four minutes.
The only goal of a high- ly-forgettable encounter arrived eight minutes into the second half.
Robinson’s nice touch teed up Chris Flood for a low shot which keeper Luca Ashby-Hammond failed to hold and Theo Lewis was quickest to react, netting from within the sixyard area. If home fans thought that was the signal for Gosport to go on and win by a healthier margin, they were to be sadly disappointed.
The bulk of the game from there on was played in the home half, though in truth Dudzinski did not have that many saves to make.
A handful of Harrow freekicks and corners made for a nervous finale, but Gosport’s main strength - their defensive ability and resolve - ensured a much-needed victory.
‘It was a must-win game,’ Molyneaux declared afterwards, and he was right.