Heath Lose out to Solid Oaks
Photos by Ray Turner
Haywards Heath’s away record this season has been far from what it was last season. Before the match, they had only won once and drawn once in seven league away matches. They looked to improve that record as they made the journey to Sevenoaks, a team winless in their last four matches in all competitions.
Martin Dynan was forced into making changes to his side as Ibrahim Jalloh and Danny Divine both served their one-match suspensions for yellow card accumulation and Byron Napper missed the match due to illness. These 3 enforced changes saw Ben Holden, Leon Moore and Lukas Franzen-Jones all starting the game.
Sevenoaks started the stronger team and Billy Collings had a busy half an hour as he made numerous stops to deny Sevenoaks. The home side really applying the pressure early in the game. Billy’s best save coming in the 15th minute, a lowdown parry which then hit the bar and prevented a fluid counter attack leading to a goal.
Sevenoaks’ Fumnaya Shomotun was the man in form for the home side and he converted one of the home side’s many chances in the first half, firing the ball past Collings and leaving him no chance. The goal kept momentum with the Oaks and they went in search of a quick second goal. It didn’t take long as Josh Bohui pulled a ball across the face of goal, and Freddie Parker was quickest to react allowing him to tap into an open net.
The half-time whistle came, bringing a disappointing half to a close for the Heath, and the hosts would undoubtedly enter the changing room happy with their first-half showing.
The Heath had an uphill battle if they wanted to come away with anything from this match, so needed to start the second half strongly. They halved their deficit after Alex Laing’s looping header struck the crossbar, and was followed up by Lukas Franzen-Jones who was eagerly waiting for the ball to drop. The goal would be the striker’s second for the blues and gave a renewed sense of hope into the travelling Heath.
However it would take only 16 minutes before the hosts restored their 2 goal lead, Shomotun breezing past the heath defence and rolling the ball to Collings’ left-hand side. The keeper left no chance as he tried his best to stretch to reach the corner of his goal.
The match was brought to a close and the Heaths’ poor run of away results continued. Despite pulling one back the Heath were unable to build on their goal and left Kent with nothing.