Tonbridge Angels (0) 2 Shields
Hemel Hempstead Town (0) 0
Attendance: 796
Admission: Season Ticket
Mileage: 38/3,406
Two second half goals from Sean Shields, on his 50th appearance, were more than enough for Tonbridge Angels to comfortably record a first-ever victory over Hemel Hempstead Town.
On an afternoon where Storm Bert had all but a dozen hardy supporters from the nearly 800 attendance heading for the covered enclosures, the Angels were largely in control of the game throughout.
Jay Saunders speaking after the game: “I’m pleased that we’ve kept our unbeaten run at home in the League going with a good three points in difficult conditions, especially in the first half, against the wind was difficult. I was pleased with the all-round performance, we’ve controlled large parts of the game and today taken our chances.”
Jay brought his new loan signing, Makise Evans straight into the starting line-up for Trevan Robinson with Ethan Sutcliffe and Shields returning from the side that exited the FA Trophy at Gosport Borough; Crossley Lema (who had suffered illness during the week) and Nazir Bakrin taking places on the bench.
Having sacrificed their favoured, second half direction of play towards the south stand to play against the wind in the first half they restricted the visitors to precious little whilst creating the best chance when Charlie Pegrum steered his shot wide from close range after being sent clear by Shields.
There was no lack of passion in the game as three first half challenges from both sides ended up in yellow cards and player melees but as the game settled into a pattern it was the Angels that wove them albeit without testing the Hemel goalkeeper, James Holden unduly.
In the second period, now with the worsening elements in their favour, the Angels pressed on quickly creating chances for Shields and debutant Makise Evans before finally going ahead after 53 minutes when Shields’ shot took a heavy deflection to wrong foot Holden.
Evans’ pace was continually troubling the Hemel backline and when Holden was needed to venture 30 yards from his goal line he was robbed by the debutant before the ball was scrambled to safety.
Of Evans’ debut, Jay commented: “I thought he had a really good debut, he’s had one training session with us on Thursday. He’s a young lad, one thing I knew we would get was work rate and honesty from him and I thought we got that and he was unfortunate not to score, but he worked hard and will get better as he is integrated into the squad.”
The second half was completely dominated by the Angels with the visitors not managing a shot on target until the 72nd minute that was comfortably saved by Matt Rowley.
The game was finally put to bed with three minutes remaining when a cross from Pegrum evaded Evans but fell to Shields who had an easy finish from the edge of the six yard box.
Jay concluded: “Today was a big win, now we need to back it up on Tuesday night at Welling, another place where we don’t have the best record, and it we can do that, we are in a good place.”
Bert tried his hardest to dampen the Angels spirit but nobody, supporters and squad alike, were having any of it!
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