Millwey Rise in seventh heaven at East Budleigh Reserves

Millwey Rise were 7-3 winners when they travelled to East Budleigh Reserves for a Fresha League meeting, writes Dick Sturch.

Up until the 40th minute Millwey had created chance after chance, but due to a combination of near misses and bad misses, did not get the ball into the net until the 42nd minute when the free-scoring Levi Hoole eventually beat the home side’s keeper to open the scoring.

A couple of minutes later Nathan Hoole, in Millwey’s goal, made an outstanding triple save to maintain their single goal advantage when the likeliest outcome should have given East Budleigh the equaliser.

In the first five minutes of the second half Hoole scored two more, with a Nathan Wormseley goal squeezed in between, to give Millwey a 4-0 lead.

East Budleigh pulled a goal back before one of their defenders, under pressure from Mark Pike, put the ball into his own net. Hoole then scored two more to bring his season’s tally to 32. The home side then scored twice leaving the final result 7-3 in Millwey’s favour.

Considering Millwey had five regular players absent, through injury and unavailability, the outcome was well deserved, although as usual they did at times make things difficult for themselves. Zak Meaker and Shane Featherstone covered a lot of ground in the midfield breaking up the home side’s attacks but on many occasions their forwards were given far too much room in the final quarter of the pitch. This in turn created a lot of unnecessary pressure on the Millwey goal where Nathan Hoole was again impressive.

The visitors to Cloakham Lawns this Saturday are Woodbury Reserves for a 2.15pm kick-off.