Truro City 1 East Thurrock United 2 (07.04.2018)

THE WHITE Tigers slipped to a home defeat at the hands of East Thurrock United.
It was a cagey opening to the proceedings with neither side able to get into their stride early on which made for a scrappy affair.
The opening goal arrived on 19 minutes and it went to our visitors as leading scorer, Higgins, was alert to nip in following some defensive hesitation to stroke the ball home.
We were finding it difficult to get into gear and looking sluggish as the opening period went on and we had Tom McHale to thank for a smart save to deny a header from Scott.
Higgins then almost found Sammons in space but we were able to scramble the ball away but the second goal for our visitors wasn’t long in arriving and it was deserved as a long ball carved us open and Higgins was able to profit to turn the ball beyond McHale.
It meant that we went in at the break two goals behind having showed very little during the first half.
We had a mountain to climb after the break and Lee Hodges responded by making a double change at the break with Tyler Harvey and Billy Palfrey introduced into the action.
The second half started with us looking to apply some early pressure and we managed to force a series of corners that ultimately came to nothing but gave hope that we could get ourselves back into the game.
A chance opened up for Harvey which was saved at the second attempt by the ‘keeper and then a deft header from Tom Owen-Evans crept just wide of the target.
Shortly afterwards Harvey went close again with a lob before seeing another effort saved.
We were asking all of the questions at this stage and with Rocky Neal also on, we made our attacking intentions perfectly clear.
It looked like we were given a lifeline when Cody Cooke turned the ball home to break the visitors’ resistance but his celebrations were short-lived as an offside flag ruled it out.
Then with ten minutes to go, a close range header from Neal somehow bounced over but we were awarded a penalty which Harvey stepped up and fired home to make it 2-1 and set up a tense finale.
Right at the death an almighty goalmouth scramble saw the visitors eventually clear their lines under pressure and with that went our last chance to take something out of the game as we were made to pay for a poor first half showing.

WHITE TIGERS: McHale, Thompson (Palfrey), Riley-Lowe, Palmer, Gerring, Richards, Lamont, Copp (Harvey), Owen-Evans, Cooke, Harding (Neal). Subs not used: Hartridge, Keats.
ATTENDANCE: 409.
GOAL(S): Harvey (pen).