Forest Row continued their remarkable start to the season with a 5-0 victory away in Edenbridge. The deer’s came into the game having only conceding three goals all season away from home, But injury concerns and late fitness tests failing for the deer’s clinical finisher Christian Hewitt and at the back stopper Nick Nicholls both out, the deer’s had only a bare 11 squad and all the players knew they had a long testing game ahead.
The game begun in dramatic fashion with Rangers almost opening the scoring in the first three minutes with a simple through ball that didn’t reach the raw skills forwards seemed to be dealt with by Liam and goalkeeper Dan Wright where a sudden mix up between the two over who should clear the ball caused Liam to put the ball through his own goalkeepers legs and heading towards the goal, with two oncoming rangers strikers giving everything to force the ball over line, Liam just did enough to save himself and his side and put it out for a an early corner, a real wake up call for the deer’s.
This really upped the greens tempo and from then on they remained in complete control and opened the score after 13 minutes when Martin received the ball down the right hand side and threaded through full back Dench who at a tight angle was one on one with the goalkeeper and then unselfishly squared the ball to Hollidge who was one of many queuing up on the edge of the six yard box who then fired the ball with a deflection into the bottom right hand corner to give the deer’s a 1-0 lead and his third goal in his last two games.
The game produced a handful of free kicks for Forest Row, with the Raw Skills defenders struggling to knick the ball off of the greens. After many attempts in similar areas outside the eighteen yard box from Hollidge and Morgan-Rowe, Forest Row finally got their second through left back Frank Morgan-Rowe who received his first league goal of the season with a fantastic free kick that bended over the wall and into the top corner of the net from around 20 yards out, 2-0 at half time.
In the second half Raw Skills really started to catch out an overly confident Forest Row side and had a chance just before the hour when their lone striker managed to shake off two players before firing a shot beyond the reach of Wright in goal and smashed the outside of the post, a close call for Frow. But Forest Row soon replied with a goal of their own to settle the early second half nerves, when again a freekick was beautifully delivered by Pleon onto the head of unmarked Martin who headed the ball into the far corner for his eighth of the season, 3-0.
Raw Skills were determined to get themselves a goal however and came close on two separate occasions, when Charlie Galloway and Dom Barker combined when Galloway sent Barker through one on one but he was denied twice brilliantly by Wright, when his initial first attempt was well saved low by the feet of Wright and when the ball fell back to the feet of Barker His second effort was pushed away for a dramatic double save by inform goalkeeper Wright who was looking for back to back clean sheets.
Forest Row then killed the game off with a classic fourth from a corner when Morgan-Rowe delivered one of his trademark corners into the box where who else, Thornley-Gobson was there to head the ball home for the three points.
Wright was tested yet again soon after the fourth goal when Galloway broke away down the left hand side and squared it to Barker unmarked in the box and had an open goal to score into but his shot which was heading into the bottom corner was beaten away by desperate Wright who stunned both supporters who couldn’t believe how well the English goalkeeper had done to reach that to keep the score at 4-0.
Raw Skills were completely fatigued after the fourth and rolled over when the deer’s hit their fifth when another corner came in from the right when a Rangers defender tried to meet the ball sent the ball towards goal and frantically two other Raw Skills players got in the way of each other and tumbled the ball over the line touching both of them as it did, unfortunate for Raw Skills who produced a real physical test for the deer’s but left empty handed.
Final score Raw Skills Rangers 0-5 Forest Row
