Cobham Sports got back to winning ways in the Dorset Premier League on Saturday when they defeated Balti Sports  5-2 at Weymouth College, they actually went a goal down, Troy Walbridge finishing well but they took a 3-1 lead to the break with goals from Mike Trim, Harry Wright and Tino Maher, in a more even second half with the game opening up they increased their lead to 5-1 late on through Asa Phillips and Amechi Eze-Sunday before Ryan McKechnie grabbed a goal three minutes from the end of the game, with Blandford Utd not playing the lead at the top of the league was cut to six points.

 

The game started evenly with Jack Summers testing Luke Beale in the eighth minute and Balti took the lead in the 20th minute, Troy Walbridge finding too much room to fire in an impressive finish giving Beale no chance. This goal seemed to wake Cobham up and three minutes later the scores were level, Mike Trim stabbing home an Andrei Munteanu corner at the near post and they were unlucky not to take the lead in the 28th minute, Harry Wright’s shot on the run from 18 yards crashing off the right hand upright with Marco Nott well beaten but just two minutes later they did hit the front when Wright deftly headed home a cross supplied by Rafa Santos. Cobham made it 3-1 in the 32nd minute, Sam Lench was fouled 22 yards out just left of centre, up stepped Faustino Maher to give Nott no chance with an expertly taken free kick. Cobham were in control and took that lead to the break.

 

Asa Phillips was just wide of the mark right at the start of the second half as Cobham took the game to Balti and manager Johny Bines made a flurry of early changes which opened the game up somewhat. The introduction of Max Dilworth and Francesco Bertorelli brought some good impetus to the Cobham effort, in fact all the subs made a difference but Cobham were guilty of giving a lot of ball away and this saw Balti get back into the game. Cobham had their chances with Asa Phillips wide again in the 74th minute and a fine move saw Dan Brown’s effort just clear the bar in the 75th minute before Eze-Sunday brought a save out of Nott in the 78th minute. Cobham left it late to add to their tally and made it 4-1 in the 86th minute, Balti’s Ollie James pulled back Eze-Sunday when closing in on goal and the referee awarded a penalty and showed James a red card, Asa Phillips made no mistake from the spot. Three minutes later it was 5-1 when Eze-Sunday fired home from 14 yards but then right from the restart Ryan McKechnie received the ball on the edge of the box, turned and fired home well from 18 yards to make the final score Balti Sports 2 Cobham Sports 5.

 

Ian Gilmartin