Stitch2Print Devon and Exeter League division one: Wellington Reserves 2, Dawlish United 0

Wellington AFC maintained their promotion push with their seventh straight win at the Playing Field yesterday (Saturday).

Striker Alfie Barratt was our man-of-the-match and he is pictured with former manager and now youth coach, Steve Trevelyan, who sponsored the award, and physio Ken Pearson.

The game against bottom-of-the-table Dawlish United went ahead after a morning pitch inspection and the Tangerines knew a victory would keep them in the top three.

Manager Mark Owen made a couple of changes from the previous match, notably bringing himself back into the team for his first start in more than three months.

Wellington dominated all the early play but struggled to make the breakthrough with some poor final touches in front of goal and, when they did get any shots on target, they were straight at the Dawlish keeper.

As the first half went on, Wellington started to get more frustrated with each other as more chances went begging and Dawlish created very little going forward.

Then, as the half entered its final ten minutes, there were two big talking points.

The first came when Rohan Poulsom broke into the box and, as he turned the defender who fell to the floor, the visiting player dragged the ball away with his hand but the referee waved play on.

The second decision saw keeper Charlie Hawkings was the victim of a lunging tackle by a Dawlish forward, sustaining a nasty cut above his ankle while the culprit escaped with a yellow card.

After that, the game headed to interval with the score at 0-0 and Wellington rueing their missed chances.

The second half started with no changes made to the line up and again Wellington, playing down the slope, had all the possession without creating any real chances.

After 55 minutes, Wellington decided to make the first change of the game bringing on Luke Perry to replace Dom Healy and he made an instant impact.

After a fine move, Rohan Poulsom collected the ball and drove a low cross into the six-yard box where Perry controlled the ball and, with defenders diving in to try and block, hit a low drive past the keeper to give the home side a deserved lead.

With Dawlish creating very little, it was really a case of when would Wellington increase their lead and the second goal came after 70 minutes.

After some nice play and touches between a few players, Rohan Poulsom collected the ball on the edge of the box, skipped past two defenders and, as he ran across the box, hit a shot from 12 yards past the keeper.

With 15 minutes to go, Michael Owen and Tom Hawkings – running the team from the technical area with Mark Owen on the pitch – made numerous substitutions.

With Wellington still having all the play, the game drifted to a finish with a 2-0 win.

The result kept their winning run going and pushed the team to joint top with their two closest rivals not playing.

Thanks to the matchday sponsors – Tom Hawkings of We Create Residential and Steve Trevelyan of Steve Trevelyan Coaching.

Team: Charlie Hawkings, Mark Owen, Dylan Groves, Connor Noble, Tom Davies, Aaron Hawkings, Ollie Nott, Dom Healey, Wes Poulsom, Alfie Barratt, Rohan Poulsom. Substitutes: Luke Perry, Ned Ogilvie, Sean Conway, James Beatty (used); Tom Hawkings (not used).

Photos courtesy of the Around Wellington website.