Herald Cup
Loddiswell 1
After a week off last Saturday, Loddiswell were raring to go. This week it was another cup game where Loddiswell travelled to Kingsteignton in the Herald Cup.
This was to be a typical cup fixture, once the game started it was played at a very fast pace and high tempo.
Though with pitch at Kingsteignton being a lot smaller than most pitches Loddiswell struggled to get their passing game into motion.
It was Lodds who were having the better of the game, with a couple of half-chances falling to Alex Watts and Edd Roberts, but neither was converted.
At half time with the score 0-0 Kingsteignton went in happier of the two sides, acknowledging that they were lucky to still not have conceded.
At half time Rob Tapper came on for Dee Rowe on the right of the midfield and this proved to be a pivotal decision in the match.
With Rob’s pace the full-back couldn’t contain him and on 55 minutes he broke through only to be brought down on the edge of the area.
Rob then duly stepped up and slotted the free kick into the bottom left hand corner, giving the ‘keeper no chance.
This caused Kings to wake up and put a lot of pressure on to the Loddiswell defence that the back four of Ben Taylor, Ben Tapper, Adam Tapper and Shauny Rowe coped with superbly.
They managed to give Simon Tapper in goal a fairly easy afternoon as each attack was dealt with.
On 70 minutes Kingsteignton had a player sent off for a second yellow, though many had felt he should have gone earlier after throwing a ball into Edd Roberts’ face. But there was no arguments when he walked after another horrendous challenge, not even from the Kingsteignton bench.
This was not the end of the referee’s cards being shown. On 75 minutes, another two-footed challenge went in on Loddiswell skipper Matt Duffy, who unfortunately saw it as a very dangerous tackle.
He made his feelings known to the Kingsteignton player, though this resulted in the captain seeing red as well.
This caused a small disagreement between both teams and resulted in another Kingsteignton being shown the red card for his actions towards the Loddiswell players.
With only 10 minutes left to play, the Loddiswell midfield of Kieron Trent and Dave Poyser kept Kings at bay and Loddiswell played out till the final whistle to go through to the next round.
The man-of-the-match award went to Ben Tapper at the heart of the defence, who didn’t put a foot wrong.
This Saturday sees Loddiswell travel to Exeter to play Exeter premier side Newtown in the Devon Premier Cup.