Daggers hurt Borough: Widdrington’s Eastbourne let lead slip as Andy Carroll turns back the clock

Just eight minutes remained when former Premier League striker Andy Carroll headed the visitors into a 2-1 lead from a needlessly conceded corner.

The Sports had dictated the entire first half, with just one goal to show for some sizzling football, but a more even second half had seen Dagenham equalise on the hour.

Talk about snatching defeat from the jaws of victory: Tommy Widdrington’s Sports had spurned a string of scoring chances throughout that first hour of play.

And subconsciously, perhaps, when you are already leading you think it does not quite matter. But the battle-hardened visitors, freshly relegated from the National League, rode their luck for an hour and then took inexorable control, minute by minute.

The other factor which swayed the balance towards the visitors was a string of injuries to home players.

Substitutes – clubs at step two can now name seven – can be a useful injection of fresh energy, or a crucial opportunity to tweak a team shape. But for Widdrington on Tuesday, they were needed simply to patch up the strains and knocks of the starting XI.

By the half-hour mark Borough had lost skipper Craig Eastmond and the sweet skills of Jayden Davis. And crucially, centre-back Freddie Carter limped off just seven minutes after half-time. The local youngster has been a defensive rock this season, and when Dagenham turned the match around from set pieces, he was missed.

Back to the start. An early flurry from the visitors was tamed, before the Sports worked impressively up through the gears. Top scorer Pemi Aderoju, a bit isolated at first, was now making inroads, and Dagenham looked suitably alarmed.

On 16 minutes after smart interplay by Grout and Corbett, the referee awarded Borough a free kick right on the 18-yard line, which might just have been turned into a penalty if the National South embraced VAR technology. But Corbett – impressing on his home debut – saw his kick parried and then scrambled away.

And the rest of the first half now turned into a relentless stream of Borough attacks. The visitors’ foul count was into double figures by just after the half-hour, as Eastbourne turned 50-50s into 70-30s.

The clock passed 45 minutes, and Priory Lane regulars were resigning themselves to a goalless change of ends – when in the fourth minute of stoppage time Josh Anifowose raced clear on the right and drilled the ball across for that man Aderoju to hammer it into the roof of the net for his 11th goal of the season, and an utterly deserved lead.

Daggers boss Lee Bradbury – briefly a Borough manager some eight years ago and genially welcomed back – sent his men out early after half-time. Would they find a sharper edge? Yes. The start of the half saw a decent balance of play, before that crucial substitution of Dan Quick for the injured Carter.

The Sports were still going forward with pace and slickness, and Grout saw a goalbound shot desperately blocked from Isaac Pitblado’s lovely assist.

But that was as good as it got for Tommy’s men. On 60 minutes the Daggers won a right wing corner, all too easily met by the head of Trent Rendall for the equaliser.

Referee Will Briers kept the yellow card in his pocket despite some crunching Daggers challenges. But the Sports were undeterred and kept pressing to regain the lead: at least four goal attempts were denied as Dagenham manned the barricades.

The minutes were slipping away, but the pace did not drop. And with just eight minutes remaining, the visitors won another right-wing corner. And Carroll still has the physique and expert timing to meet a curling corner kick and plant it into the net. Two-one, three points snatched away, and the Priory Lane Groan was audible.