Sherborne Town 0 Bridgwater United 0

The Robins’ promotion ambitions were further dented at Rayleigh Grove as, despite dominating both possession and territory, they failed to breakdown a resolute Sherborne defence.

United were unchanged following their impressive performance v Shepton Mallet last Saturday with Jack Taylor and Mark Armstrong both suspended.

With the referee insisting on the need for floodlights from the start, United began confidently looking to play through midfield and set Thorne and Hartley free to test the Zebra’s defence. Their early dominance saw several corners secured but without creating any real threat. With 20 minutes gone, the threat level stepped up as the energetic Hartley broke clear only to be thwarted by an outstanding tackle by a ‘Zebras’ defender.

The game continued in a similar vein with the visitors frustrated by their inability to find the quality and weight of pass needed to achieve a breakthrough. In fact, the first on target attempt fell to the hosts around the half hour mark as Jack Viney dived low to his left to save comfortably.

The second period continued to follow a similar pattern with defences dominant with just the occasional half chance being created. A downward header from the lively Sherborne number 9 on 51 minutes that hit the foot of Viney’s left hand post, looked like it might change things, as did United’s ‘goal’ a few minutes later, disallowed for a push on a defender in the melee.

Sherborne continued to thwart  ‘The Robins’ attempts to step up the tempo and almost made a breakthrough themselves as their best chance of the game was repelled by an outstanding save by the United custodian. Despite multiple changes in the final quarter the scores remained level and the points shared.

Bridgwater Utd: Jake Viney. Dave Thorne, Jake Llewellyn Ross Edwards, Jacob Spence, Sam Towler, George King, (Ollie Hebbard 71), Morgan Williams, (Allen Mabia (88), Tom Llewellyn, Conor Hartley, (Jack Brown 52), Jack Thorne, Alex Parsons 88)

Sub Unused: Flynn Smith

Sherborne Town: Josh Attwood, Jake Graziano, George Mapletoft, Aaron White, Matty Brown, Josh Williams, Sam Farthing, Henry Lawrence-Napier, Anthony Herrin, Declan Cornish, Ben Hughes.

Subs: Bejani Mwaruwari, Liam Norris, Alex Murphy, Gabriel Plant, Steve Burton.

Competition: Western League Premier Division

Date: 18th March 2023

Venue: Rayleigh Grove

Attendance: 202

Referee: Jonathan Veale

Assistants: Michael Richards, Cameron Cudlipp.