Romford 1 (0) v Lowestoft Town 3 (2) - Attendance 154

Romford 1 (0) v Lowestoft Town 3 (2) - Attendance 154

Lowestoft moved to the top of the table with this win and it has to be said that they fully deserved all the points with their performance although it looked at one time if Boro might get something out of the game when they reduced the deficit to just one goal and were pressing for an equaliser midway through the second half.

The Trawlerboys started off smoothly and stamped their authority on the game early on with good movement and linked play on and off the ball. Boro defended stoutly against a number of attacks without being able to worry the visiting defence on the break as they tended to give the ball away too easily but the opening Lowestoft goal on 12 minutes had an element of good fortune about it rather than from open play. Keeper Danny Mulrooney parried a hard shot being unable to hold it but the visitor’s Matt Nolan rather than a defender was the first to get to the ball which was jumping about in the goalmouth and poke it into the home net.

The home side started to play better after this but went further behind some nine minutes later when their visitors broke down their left and a pass inside, with the home defence in disarray, was easily side footed past an exposed Mulrooney by Gary McGee. There were no more goals before half time although Boro threatened a bit better but were unable to make anything out of their attacks.

Ten minutes after the break Romford made two tactical substitutions with Paul Burnett and Reece Cosson replacing Jimmy Noakes and Danny Jones and this seemed to rejuvenate the home efforts with more attacks coming through the mid field and putting Lowestoft defence under more pressure than they had faced previously.

Boro were rewarded with their greater effort on 70 minutes when, in an attack down the left wing, a pin point Shaun Clarke centre was met expertly by Paul Burnett whose glancing header gave visiting keeper Andrew Reynolds no chance.

This success spurred the whole team to greater effort, Jack Barry having replaced Paul White who had picked up a slight injury, with the defence and the midfield having more of the game and feeding the ball through to their forwards more accurately and for a while it seemed that there was a possibility that Romford might obtain an equaliser.

Sadly Boro's hopes were dashed ten minutes or so from the final whistle when two home defenders were unable to clear an awkward bouncing ball between them in their penalty area and the Trawlerboys’ number nine Matt Nolan, who had been a thorn in the Boro flesh throughout the game, collected and moved with it towards the home goal and hit a right foot rocket of a shot into the home net via the underside of the crossbar from an extremely acute angle although it seemed that he might have taken the ball on too far.

This goal put the game beyond the reach of the home side but they continued to try and reduce the deficit once again without any success until the referee called a halt to the proceedings.

Moving on from this Romford’s next game would appear to be the FA Trophy home tie against AFC Sudbury on Sunday October 4th kick off 2pm as their original league game away to Enfield Town this coming Saturday has been postponed to the evening of Tuesday October 4th with these opponents now having an FA Cup tie instead.

Romford squad: Mulrooney, Oxby, Taylor, Clayton, White (Barry 66), Port, Tubey, Jones (Cosson 55), Noakes (Burnett 55), Clarke, Kavanagh. Substitutes not used: K.Neville and Finn (GK).