Malborough Utd 2, Harbertonford 9

MALBOROUGH were caught napping from the first whistle and found themselves two behind with only five minutes on the clock.

They then began to claw their way back into the game with some dogged determination.

Gareth Morgan and Troy Corruthers at the heart of the midfield began to get a bit of a hold and when Curruthers picked out Alex Watts he glided forward, dissected the defence with a perfect pass for Kielan Arblaster to run onto, who kept his shot low into the far corner.

The game was nicely posed when Arblaster terrorised the defence once more, the ball set up nicely for him to rifle his shot into the back of the net to level the score.

The game ebbed and flowed. White and Gritten worked the flanks well and with half time approaching it seemed as if they were going in all square when a break down the left saw a low drive across the area take a wicked deflection to totally deceive Din-Dan-Gill in the home goal.

Malborough were dealt a bitter blow early in the second half, losing both centre halves Matt Walters and Nick Martin to injuries.

Although the Fords began to score at regular intervals nobody epitomised the true fighting spirit within this team more than Dave Boxwell who worked his socks off in defence.

Debutant Gareth Head bought new impetus to the attack, showing the defence a clean pair of heels on numerous occasions, but they couldn't prevent the Fords going on to a comfortable victory in the end.

Man of the match Dave Boxwell.

Match ball sponsor, Norman Brooking Buildings of Chillington.