Newhaven travelled to play-off chasing Crowborough Athletic on Saturday to take on one of the division’s form teams.

Although the Crows had been defeated last time out at Eastbourne United, prior to that they hadn’t tasted defeat in any competition since the 12^th October.

The Dockers, meanwhile, have been unable to find any real consistency this season; winning a few games here and there, before losing a few. And being consistently inconsistent doesn’t count.

Looking to build on the previous week’s improved attacking display, Newhaven started this match on the front-foot.

Inside the opening minute the visitors twice looked to have great opportunities to perhaps go ahead, only for players to choose to pass rather than shoot, allowing the Crows to eventually clear their lines.

That was to be as good as got for the Dockers for quite while as Crowborough soon assumed superiority of the game.

The Crows thought they’d taken the lead on the ninth-minute, when Rush Samuel-Smikle had the ball in the net, only to be denied by the offside flag.

Newhaven’s reprieve didn’t last long, though. Three-minutes later they were behind.

A half-cleared corner fell kindly to Tom Pearson on the edge of the area, and the Crows attacker made no mistake, with a well-struck first time finish that gave Newhaven keeper Josh James no chance.

Crowborough continued to lay siege to the Newhaven goal, and when a second goal arrived ten minutes later, it was hard to argue that it hadn’t been coming.

Pearson was again the scorer, with a strike from range that beat seemingly the unsighted James.

Conceding when under pressure has been an ongoing problem for Newhaven all season. The Dockers don’t seem to be able to ride out those periods of a game when they came under sustained pressure; often shipping a goal or two (and sometimes even three). Resilience when under fire is definitely something that needs work on going forward.

Just before the half-hour mark, Newhaven went close to reducing the arrears twice in quick succession. Debutant Emmanuel Abudiore (the 53^rd player to pull on a shirt for the Dockers first-team this season!), forced a great save from the Crowborough goalkeeper after cutting inside and letting fly, before the Crows stopper did well yet again, this time to deny Dexter Lambert.

At the other end, though, Crowborough were continuing to carve through us at will, and had it not been for James pulling off a string of fine save, the game could have been over long before the referee blew for half-time.

 The second-half continued in much the same pattern as the first; albeit without Crowborough looking quite as threatening as they had in the first half.

That said, James did have to pull off another couple of great saves to keep the game alive in the opening ten minutes of the half.

At the other end, the Dockers were struggling to create any chances of real note.

However, having reached the seventieth minute only two behind, there were hopes that one goal Newhaven’s way could suddenly turn the game on its head.

Alas, with the Newhaven management duo just getting ready to roll the dice, it was the Crows who scored to make the game safe, grabbing a third courtesy of Harry Forster.

Deep into injury time the Dockers thought they had a goal back, when Under23s player Corey Smart finished calmly into the corner, only for the assistant’s flag to (seemingly harshly) deny him a first senior goal.

Come full-time, there could be no complaints regarding the result, as the Dockers were well-beaten by a very good Crowborough team. In fact, had it not been for James the margin of victory could easily have been greater.

It doesn’t get any easier, either, as next week we welcome another play-off hopeful, Haywards Heath to Fort Road. Heath had been struggling of late, but picked up their first win in ten games (in all competitions) on Saturday. A confidence boost just in time to play us. Typical!

We then head to Horsham YMCA for the third time this season a week later (15^th February).

Your support at either of these game would be much appreciated.

Come On You Dockers!

My man of the match (aka, the controversial part): Josh James. Surely the least controversial award this season. It had to be JJ. Despite conceding three, it could have easily been double that number were it not for a string of fine saves to keep the score down.