EP make the extra man count at Lancing

EAST Preston Football Club continued their perfect start to life in County League Division 1 on Saturday with a 3-1 victory at Lancing.

The game was scoreless until Lancers had left-back Grant Philpott sent off for a foul on Alex Duncan with 15 minutes left and EP then made their extra man count.

They scored three goals in the last 13 minutes, before Lancing got a consolation in injury-time.

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Lancing manager Martin Gander said: “Grant’s sending off changed the complex of the game as they then scored three in 13 minutes.

“It was a rash challenge and it was very similar to a foul that their player, Alex Duncan, made on Wayne Joseph early in the game. I think Alex got away with that because it was so early in the game.

“Grant deserved to go, I’ve got no complaints with the decision but the tackle on Wayne was just as bad.

“I think that if we’d kept 11 men on the pitch, the game would probably have finished 0-0 as there was no difference between the two sides as both teams were cancelling each other out. It was a dead cert to be a 0-0 draw until Grant was sent off.

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“We conceded a bad goal to go one down and were then always chasing the game to try to get something.”

EP went closest to scoring in a scoreless first half when Joe Shelley headed against the bar and saw his follow-up come back off the bar as well.

East Preston keeper Anthony Ender had a couple of long-range efforts to deal with, before Duncan cleared a Lancing effort off the line at the start of the second half.

After Philpott’s red card, EP took the lead within two minutes when Nikolaos Kakolris slid Shelley in and he tapped the ball past Lancing keeper Sam Cronin.

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East Preston soon doubled their lead when Matt Axell’s cross was knocked back into the danger area by Mark Zydonik and Craig Grantham headed home, with Lancers appealing for offside.

EP made sure of the win in the final minute when Lee Barnard won the ball off Dan McLoughlin and Dan Simmonds raced through from the halfway line, held off a couple of defenders and fired home to net for the fourth successive game.

There was still time for Lancing to pull a goal back in injury-time when Darren Boswell finished neatly from Shaheen Sadough’s cross but EP were already assured of all three points by then.

For a report and reaction on Lancing’s John O’Hara Cup win at Newhaven on Tuesday night see this week’s Herald.