By Kevin Marriott
WESTERN LEAGUE LES PHILLIPS CUP (THIRD-ROUND)
St Austell 1 Barnstaple Town 4
BARNSTAPLE scored three goals in the last eight minutes at Poltair on Wednesday night to leave St Austell stunned and out of the Les Phillips Cup.
With six minutes of normal time remaining there was nothing to choose between the sides and a penalty shootout seemed the likeliest way to separate two good teams.
But then Euan Washbrook put Barum ahead and with St Austell forced to pour forward in search of an equaliser, the visitors scored twice more in time added on through Harry Scott and Gabby Rogers to give the scoreline a ridiculously one-sided look, even though Barnstaple admitted they were under par.
And Lillywhites manager Chris Knight said: “It’s hard to sum up the game and how I feel without sounding ridiculous for anyone that wasn’t there as the scoreline reads 4-1 and that’s the cold reality.
“The way we played for 88 minutes is without doubt the best we’ve played this season, time after time creating chances and playing great football.
“But the cold reality is that if you don’t kill the game off you leave yourself open to a late sucker punch and of course that’s what happened.
“The final two goals I couldn’t care less about as clearly at 2-1 down we are trying to take it to penalties and played with one defender, but leading up to that again it sounds ridiculous when you just read the result as we were excellent.
“Anyway, enough of feeling sorry for ourselves, they are through and well done to them. We knew at some stage they’d introduce (Gabby) Rogers and sure enough he kills us with a bit of magic and a cross in the last minute, so fair play to him and them.
“We’ve been on a brilliant run of nine unbeaten and our league form is good so I’m happy having played that well we can hopefully use that going into a busy period coming up.”
ST AUSTELL: Andy Collings, Jake Shaw, Martyn Duff, Danny Lewis, Ollie Brokenshire, Callum Watson (Henry Wilson), Neil Slateford (capt - Haiden Chapman), Kieron Bishop, Liam Eddy (Adam Carter), George Marris, Ryan Downing (Matt Searle). Sub not used: Tom Whipp.
St Austell man of the match: George Marris.
By David Sillifant
SOUTHERN LEAGUE DIVISION ONE SOUTH (WEDNESDAY)
Larkhall Athletic 2 Falmouth Town 3
LUKE Barner scored twice as Falmouth withstood a thrilling late fightback to earn three points from their trip to Bath and move out of the bottom four.
Town’s form recently hasn’t been the best, but a fabulous opening 55 minutes ensured three points headed back to Cornwall.
Although Harrison Jewell had to clear a shot off the line five minutes in to prevent Larkhall going in front, man of the match Barner slotted in on 17 minutes before the same player doubled the advantage just before the break when he tapped the ball between the keeper’s legs before firing into the empty net.
Jewell kept up his eventful game by powering home a header early in the second half, but Larkhall then ramped up the pressure.
Ryan Beckinsale slotted home a penalty before visiting keeper Morgan Coxhead was regularly forced into action.
Lewis Graham glanced in a header six minutes from time, but after seven minutes of injury-time the final whistle went to the relief of the visitors.
FALMOUTH TOWN: Morgan Coxhead; Freddie Walter, Harrison Jewell, Thomas Annear (capt), Bradley Leivers; Andreas Calleja-Stayne, Andrew Elcock; Cam Hutchison, Jared Sims, Luke Barner; Luke Brabyn. Subs: Rubin Wilson, Andrew Westgarth, Jack Webber, Ned Symons, Ollie Walker.
Falmouth Town man of the match: Luke Barner.