Tiverton town travelled to Central this saturday for a much tougher fixture then the lads first anticipated, Central started the better of the two teams as Tivvy struggled to settle to their passing game and found themselves reduced to more of a counter attacking style of play for the first 10 minutes or so as Central piled on the pressure. Eventually as the half went on Tivvy managed to get more involved in the play and started to create good chances. It was Tivvy who broke the deadlock first when some good build up play sent the ball to the left side of the area where Toby Hide took the ball inside onto his right foot and struck a low shot which the keeper did well to save, but fortunately the rebound came back to Hide who then smashed it home with his left to take the lead. For awhile this looked to settle Tivvy and they had a spell where they kept possesion better and looked to be in control, but it wasn't to last long as Central regrouped and again started to dominate play and after a couple chances going close Central got the equaliser they deserved, a goal mouth scramble led to the ball looping in the air where a Central player did well to do an overhead kick sending the ball into the top corner.

For much of the rest of the half it was end to end stuff with both teams looking to take the lead, Jay Woodward was forced to make 2 good saves in the Tivvy goal while down the other end Ethan Osbon and Lloyd White came close with their efforts before Toby Hide struck the crossbar with a long range effort. But nobody managed to take the lead and the teams went in level at the break with all to play for in the second half.

Tivvy started better in this half and it wasn't long before they took the lead when Luke Scampton played a nice long ball from left back into the feet of Lloyd White, with his back to goal on the edge of the box, he neetly played a controlled side foot volley back towards the run of Tyler Hawkins who let it bounce once before striking on the volley, firing it low into the bottom corner giving the keeper no chance. Immediately after this Central forced Tivvy into a defensive error and took full advantage spreading the ball left before the player drilled it in at the near post for 2-2. From here on Central started to look the more dangerous of the teams as Tivvy were rattled. Although the lads were tackling well, they found it difficult to make the pass and constantly played the ball back to a Central player allowing them to keep the pressure on, Tivvy rode their luck on several occasions but eventually managed to push Central back the pitch and create chances of their own. Tivvy were next to score and take the lead when a scrappy midfield battle saw Tivvy's strong centre back Lucas White charge in, take control of the ball, stroll past 2 players and smash the ball into the back of the net for 3-2 to Tivvy. Again though Central came flying back at Tivvy pushing for an equaliser, but Tivvy's defence were again tackling well but struggling to keep the ball when winning it. Surprisingly though Tivvy again managed to break out and score another to go 4-2 up, this was their best move of the match, it started from the back where this time they managed to play the ball out calmly, out to the left, back inside and out to the right before back inside to Joe Greenslade in midfield who skipped past one and drove towards the edge of the box, as the defender's committed themselves, Greenslade neetly chipped the ball between them with a nice weight into the box for the run of Luke Scampton on his right, who got there before the rushing keeper and similarly chipped the ball over him to give Tivvy a two goal lead.

Central weren't to be outdone though and battled and pushed before deservedly pulling another well worked goal back to bring them within one again and set up a tense last 6 or 7 minutes of the game. Its fair to say at 4-3 to Tivvy  these last minutes were very evenly played with both teams working extremely hard and battling well, but the difference in these last minutes came in the form of Tivvy's striker Lloyd White.

With 5 minutes to go Lloyd's movement put him one on one with Central's centre back on the break and he did well to use his strength to keep the defender on his left shoulder and get close enough to the edge of the area to strike the ball low and hard under the body of the diving Central keeper. And soon after Lloyd really did put the game to rest, he picked up the ball loose on the right side of the pitch on the halfway line, at 5-3 with only a couple minutes to go he ran towards the corner of the pitch to keep the ball and run the clock down (so everyone thought) but not Lloyd, as he ran he found space to cut inside the chasing back midfielder, he then strongly passed another to get to the edge of the box, where he was met by two defenders, he superbly used quick feet to go between them and again cut inside the very last defender with great skill to leave him one on one with the keeper where he cooly side-footed it into the bottom corner, a quite superb goal to watch at the end of an enthralling game of football.

In summary it wasn't Tivvy's best performance, although the lads worked hard when defending they constantly found themselves giving the ball away, to a Central team who also work hard, are a great team unit and given the opportunity have the quality to punish the best of teams. The only difference seperating the two teams on the day was the pure quality of Tivvy's goals, when the lads are attacking they are second to none, hence averaging 6/7 goals a game.

Good luck to Central United for the rest of the season, i hope they stay in division 1, playing with only 8 players at the start of the season and now coping with only 9 i think they are a credit to their club and prove their quality by sitting  in 4th place in a very strong league.

Exile's started this game very slowly and took a while to get going. When they finally did start playing they were moving the ball around the pitch very well. With some great link up play between Harvey Richards and Camron Hance, the Exile's were applying good pressure. Exile's didn't have it all their own way with some brave defending from Jack Carter needed.

Exile's finally broke the deadlock after some tremendous work down the wings from both Kai Parmenter and Kyler Rogers,  Moustafa Salam found himself chasing down the ball in the six yard box. The Ammies defence worked hard but Salam was first to react and twisted his body around to fire home low and into the corner.

This seemed to spark Ammies up a gear, forcing a string of attacks resulting in numerous corners. Ammies pulled level from this after a deep cross was met by an Exile's head finding their own net.

Luke Herbert really took control of the centre of the park with some first rate distribution around the pitch. From these moves, Tyler Griffin came very close to scoring quite a few times, only to find the keeper in fine form.

In the second half the Exile's really showed great character with some excellent football, playing the ball out to the wings, and supporting each other all over the pitch with and without the ball.

They then started to apply real pressure and virtually camped out in the Ammies penalty area. If it wasn't for some tremendous goalkeeping between the sticks from the Ammies glovesman it really could have been a landslide.

With further goals from Camron Hance (2), Harvey Richards, and Kyler Rogers this truly was a fantastic all round performance from the Exile's.