Geary pleased but Bailey frustrated

The boggy surface levelled things up a little and it was Lancers who came out of the blocks the quicker as the pacey Richard Greenfield latched on to a through ball but Dan Taylor was on hand to shepherd the danger into Fraser Trigwell’s grateful arms after just three minutes.

Lancers’ Elliott Finney was next to have a chance having collected a short backpass to bear down on goal but his shot lacked venom in the 16th minute.

The big talking point of the game came in the 32nd minute as a hopeful Dave O’Callaghan ball was neatly flicked on by Toby House to a well-timed Mike Williamson run. Trigwell came flying out of his goal, tripping the Lancing winger around the 18 yard line.

All eyes went immediately to the referee’s assistant who was in line but no signal was forthcoming, so referee David Ellis could only assume that the challenge was outside the box. Trigwell was awarded just a yellow card due to the ball ending up by the corner flag and the resulting free kick was wasted by O’Callaghan.

Mavericks almost took the lead a minute before the break after a Grant Philpott free kick was spilled by Callum Fidler, with Craig Nagle burying the follow-up but the effort was correctly ruled out for offside.

Mavericks offered more of a threat in the second period as debutant and Bognor youth team player Kieran Deacon stung Fidler’s palms on 50 minutes and four minutes later another Philpott free kick could only be parried to Aaron Tugnutt but his volley sailed over from 12 yards.

Lancing had another claim for a penalty in the 69th minute when Williamson went down after a coming together with Philpott but the appeals were waved away once again, correctly so as he just appeared to run into the defender before falling over.

Mavericks manager Geary said: “I’m really pleased with that performance, especially since we had three under 18s out there making debuts or full debuts.

“I thought we were gutsy and showed a lot of determination today which is something we’ve lacked on occasion recently. Lancing are a good, free-scoring side; we shut them out and deserved our point.”

Lancing boss Bailey said: “We lowered our standards today. The conditions were a leveller but we were sloppy, our decision making was poor and we dwelled on the ball instead of moving it on quickly. Credit to United, though, as they worked very hard.”

UNITED: Trigwell, Taylor, Hall, Philpott, Elliot, Edwards, Deacon, Nagle, Callaghan, Rose, Tugnutt; Subs: Buggy (Tugnutt 69), Gilmour (Nagle 74), Evans.

LANCING: Fidler, Bowra, Fenton, Spinks, Sharman, E.Finney, Williamson, Rouane, House, O’Callaghan, Greenfield. Subs: Adams (Greenfield 61), Caplin (O’Callaghan 72), McHale (House 75), Storrie, Hendy.

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