Woodford sees red again as Rebels thrash Horsham

Two penalties from Brannon O’Neill, a third from Lloyd Dawes and goals from Ben Pope and Tariq Richards saw Rebels to ease to a comfortable win to plunge yet more misery on basement boys Horsham.

The Hornets begun 2015 as they ended last year with a nothing short of woeful showing against a well-organised and impressive Worthing.

Recent new additions Ryan Woodford also received his third consecutive red card for a rash challenge to give away the third spot kick.

New signing Oli Lockyer made his Hornets debut, while player-manager Gary Charman returned to the starting 11, although his afternoon was short lived.

The match was delayed for 15 minutes after the match referee Michael Taylor injured his back getting out of his car and with the Redhill and Merstham game postponed that official, Louis Marks stood in.

The visitors were ahead in the eighth minute as a Billy Joe-King fell on the low cross from the right and handled the ball with the stand-in referee pointing straight to the spot.

There were little complaints from the Horsham players and O’Neill fired the spot kick straight down the middle.

The game ebbed and flowed after the goal and stern challenge from Tom Gilbert stopped a promising run from Rebels’ Omar Bugiel.

A minute later the dangerous Lloyd Dawes cut in from the right and fired an effort from just inside the area into the side netting, before Gareth Williams was down well to stop another effort from the wide man.

Charman’s afternoon was cut short on 22 minutes with the player-boss suffering a reoccurrence of his hamstring injury and was replaced by Miller.

On 25 minutes, Ryan Woodford raced back into his own area and put a crunching and perfectly-timed tackle in on Bugiel to clear the ball.

Two minutes later, Bugiel beat the offside trap from a ball over the top and nicked it past the onrushing Williams, but the forward’s touch took it wide and Williams got back to push away his cross.

At the other end, a rare Horsham attack saw Lewis Hamilton’s ball find Ryan Marriott at the far post, but his heavy touch let the ball away from him and to a grateful Jack Fagan.

Horsham had a second good penalty shout turned away on the half-hour mark as Gilbert and O’Neill tussled on the edge of the area, but the referee penalised the Worthing man for diving.

The visitors almost had a second on 41 minutes from a sublime move which saw a just as impressive save from Williams.

Dawes took the ball well on the halfway line and turned to race down the wing, he skipped past Joe-King and passed to Bugiel, who laid off to Curtis Gayler and Williams got a palm to push over his rasping effort from 12 yards.

Tom Frankland replaced Marriott at half-time for Horsham but the hosts were two-goals down within three minutes of the second half.

King gave away a second penalty as he hauled down an opponent as the last man and was somehow only booked.

O’Neill stepped up and sent Williams the wrong way to coolly finish in the bottom left for his second goal of the afternoon from the spot.

Worthing added a third on 56 minutes as a defence-splitting pass from Will Hendon allowed Pope to ghost in to put under Williams from the right.

The home side tried to string a move together on 65 minutes as Miller headed down to Tony Nwachukwu in the area, but Fagan was out to collect, while a tame Jack Page effort rolled past the post six minutes later.

On 81 minutes, Ryan Woodford clattered into Worthing substitute Ryan Quirke in the box and was shown a red card for what looked like a second booking.

It was the recent signing’s third straight red and with O’Neill having been replaced, Dawes thrashed home the spot kick and substitute Tariq Richards added a fifth in injury-time.

AFC Bournemouth’s football operations and recruitment manager John Yems was sitting with Horsham’s board members at the game with view to possible loaning of players, which on this latest showing is desperately needed.

Horsham: Williams, Hamilton, Page, Gilbert, Joe-King, Nwachukwu, Morley, Woodford, Marriott (Frankland 45), Charman (Miller 22), Lockyer. Unused subs: Smith, Akande, Blaney.

Worthing: Fagan, Sparks, Berry, Hurley, Hendon (Quirke 77), Gayler, Nicholls (Richards 66), O’Neill (Gilbertson 71), Dawes, Bugiel, Pope. Unused subs: Raine.

Attendance: 294.

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