Poole Town 0 Truro City 3 (26.12.2017)

THE WHITE Tigers secured a deserved return to winning ways with a convincing 3-0 Boxing Day victory at a decidedly wet Poole Town.
On a slick surface, an early foul on Cody Cooke gave us a free-kick in a promising position just outside the area. Ed Palmer stepped up and saw his powerful strike deflected away.
Both sides were trying to get the ball down and play but it was certainly a case of defences on top for the opening half-an-hour or so as both back-lines looked solid to restrict opportunities.
There were a couple of half-chances as Cooke saw an effort deflected wide for The White Tigers, whilst Devlin fired well over for the home side.
It was The White Tigers who ended the half strongly as we started to get on the ball more and Cooke went close with a low drive that was deflected wide.
A neat passage of play ended with Aaron Lamont getting in a strike that was pushed back into the danger zone by the ‘keeper but his defence was on hand to scramble clear and then right at the end of the half, some good link-up play between Tyler Harvey and Cooke ended with the ball falling nicely for Noah Keats who fired over from a good position.
It was a closely-fought opening period, although it was The White Tigers who looked the most likely side in the closing stages.
We continued in a similar vein at the start of the second half and got our reward when Cooke found the net to open the scoring on 57 minutes.
The wet surface played its part as Cooke went close again but his effort stuck in the goalmouth before Niall Thompson saw a low effort deflected out for a corner in our next raid as we asked all the second half questions.
It was following a series of corners that we managed to double our advantage when a scramble inside the area saw the ball fall out to the edge of the box where Harvey fired home to make it 2-0.
The non-stop rain was making conditions increasingly difficult as Moore went close at the far post for the home side.
The third goal arrived when Harvey turned well on the edge of the area to fire into the top left-hand corner of the net. It was a quality finish from the front-man.
We were certainly singing in the rain as Lamont saw his strike from distance tipped over by the ‘keeper as we played out the closing stages to secure a deserved three points from what turned out to be a convincing Boxing Day win.

WHITE TIGERS: McHale, Palfrey (Thompson), Riley-Lowe, Palmer, Gerring, Richards, Lamont (Copp), Keats, Harvey, Cooke (Neal), Harding. Subs not used: Hartridge, Yetton.
ATTENDANCE: 381.
GOAL(S): Cooke, Harvey (2).