Terras Cling On To The Points
By Steve Dadd & Pete Pavey

12th September 2001

After the disappointment of Saturday' s loss after a confident display against Stafford, Weymouth, bolstered by the availability of Lee Phillips looked to get back to winning way's with tonight's fixture against Newport County. 

There was a minute's silence before the game commenced, which gave us all time to reflect on what had just happened over in the States and made us realise just how fragile life is.

Newport opened the scoring after 7 minutes, the Weymouth defence failed to clear a dangerous ball that was allowed to be headed by about every Weymouth player in the box, Scott Gifford pounced and crashed the ball into the back of the net.

Weymouth equalised after 14 minutes, Michael Dean picked out Lee Phillips' surging run into the box, Lee beat the keeper and from the tightest of angles slotted home.

Newport looked dangerous on the break and forced two corners on 20minutes, four minutes later Simon Browne made a wavering run into the Newport Box, slipped the ball to Rawlinson but his shot went wide.

Frustration was building with both sides at inept refereeing; Laws and Robinson were pulled up on a number of occasions for offside when they were anything but.

On 26 minutes Laws made a strong run down the left flank, sent in a low ball across the face of goal, Weymouth's front men had surged too early and the ball was cleared. On the half hour Steve Cowe let fly a curling dipping shot, beating Potter it cannoned off the crossbar.

Lee Phillips was covering every blade of grass up front, a Rawlinson through ball set Phillips on his way and for once the ref's assistant kept his flag down. Jinking his way past covering defenders his final pass was cleared off the toe of Robinson.

David Laws hit a superb volley on 40 minutes but his shot went over, and with Laws running the left flank another cross by him was met by Robinson, with the goal at his mercy, Curly took his eye off the ball, thinking about his victory roll and sliced his shot wide. 

Straight away at the other end, Gary Sheppard saw Danny Potter push his shot onto the crossbar. Right on the stroke of half time Weymouth took the lead, a Robinson cross from the left found Laws he dummied the ball, drawing the keeper and Rawlinson smacked home from 8 yards.

For the impartial supporter this was a great first half, the scores could quite easily have been four each, the second half was eagerly awaited.

Unfortunately only Danny Potter turned out in the second half as Newport threw everything at Weymouth but failed to score, I would be up all night if I documented every Newport attack, suffice to say, Danny made some excellent saves, Newport missed some sitters and when the final whistle blew the score remained 2-1 to the Terras.