Poole town vs Basingstoke set up prior to this game with both teams at the top of the table, Basingstoke on 10 pts with games in hand on the league leaders and Poole level on points in the same boat this promised to be an exciting game.

With the start being a little nervy with both teams not wanting to give much away, Basingstoke broke on a few occasions but the Poole defense being excellently marshalled by Husher, sault in Kerney the back 3 protecting Stainer – Reids goal in the early exchanges.

Poole started to probe the Basingstoke defense, setting up slightly differently to usual with the back 3, and 5 in midfield, going fairly direct in the opening stages to combat Basingstokes high press and with the aim being to bypass top scorer and first team striker Charlie Barlow who featured only the week before and scored against the first team. In truth he had very little to feed off with the back three and wingbacks Mckeown and Best executing the game plan soundly.

By understanding a little bit about Basingstokes high press, aggressive style the team set up to miss out the front line of Basingstoke and going into the Poole forwards early, Bowmaster and Coombs this played right into Poole’s hands. On the 35th minute the deadlock was broken, a good combination in the wide areas from Gill and Bowmaster forced a corner and from that resulting corner Bowmasters delivery was met by captain Whitbread who made it 1-0.

This spurred a response from Basingstokes front line, with them upping the urgency they begun a small assault on Poole’s goal, fortunately some brave defending firstly from Mckeown and then Sault kept the frontline at bay. This followed up with a triple save from Stainer – Reid right on half time, a shot from inside the area was saved, followed up in the 6-yard box by the Basingstoke number 10 his effort was saved again, and the rebound was header at Reid again who palmed it away. A big moment at the end of the half meant that at half time Poole went in 1-0 ahead.

A solid half from Poole but with plenty of work to do still, the second half begun brightly for Poole and an underhit back pass from full back to Gk allowed the on rushing Gill to capatilise.

2 – 0 Poole Town and in truth thats how it stayed with neither team advancing anything of note towards the end of the game, Poole seeing the game out comfortably, a few standout performances from Reid in goal and both Sault and Mckeown were excellent, but man of the match went to Husher.

Poole currently sit third in the youth alliance but have a game in hand with a winning result allowing them to go top.