Preview: Falmouth Town vs Camelford

Falmouth Town will be looking to bounce back from last week’s first loss of the season at Buckland Athletic when they welcome Camelford to Bickland Park on Saturday.

The 3-1 defeat at the Devonians in the FA Vase second round proper may have halted Town’s run of consecutive wins since the start of the season at 18, but Town’s perfect record in the South West Peninsula League remains intact.

Town enjoy an unblemished record of 13 wins from as many games in the league’s west division, and manager Andrew Westgarth is keen to pick up where his side left off in the league and bounce back from their Vase exit.

Speaking ahead of the game he said: “I said to my boys straight after the game on Saturday that I just couldn’t wait for the next game to come. As disappointing as it was to lose in the Vase, our attention quickly turned to the league game.

“It’s an important period for us now. We always put games into blocks and now we’re in another little block to the end of the year; Camelford, Liskeard, Wadebridge, Launceston and Penryn.

“There’s some tough games coming in there but it’s just important we get back to winning ways because we don’t really want to be going into Liskeard [next Saturday] off the back of two bad results.”

Camelford, who coincidentally also exited the FA Vase at the hands of Buckland in the round prior to Town, come into Saturday’s match off the back of a 2-1 defeat at home to St Austell last weekend, when a Cam Bidgood brace cancelled out Mark Gusterson’s opener.

Ed Harrison is the Camels’ leading marksman this term, having found the net 12 times in 16 league appearances.

Reg Hambly’s outfit lie third in the table, six points behind Town having played four more games. However, Saturday’s loss to the Lillywhites extended the Camels’ run of games without a win to four.

The teams met in the reverse league fixture at Trefrew Park on September 11, with Luke Brabyn and James Ward scoring two goals apiece as Town came back from a goal down to run out emphatic 6-1 winners. Tim Nixon and Olly Walker completed the scoring for Town, while Ryan Downing netted for the north Cornwall outfit.

“I thought that was one of our toughest opponents and one of our best performances actually,” Westgarth said of the 6-1 win. “I said at the time when we went in at 1-1 at half-time that I was actually really enjoying the game. It was a proper game, they’ve got some very, very good players and it felt like a proper match.

“We just blew them away in 15 minutes of the second half so it was really pleasing. We could definitely do with some of that this Saturday.

“It could go one of two ways; their confidence could be really low [after three successive defeats] or they could come back and they’re probably due a good performance, so it should be an intriguing game.”

Last five games: Falmouth Town

Nov 20: Buckland Athletic 3-1 Falmouth Town (FA Vase)
Nov 12: Falmouth Town 5-2 Wendron United (SWPL)
Nov 6: Bodmin Town 3-5 Falmouth Town (Senior Cup)
Oct 23: Falmouth Town 2-1 Bradford Town (FA Vase)
Oct 16: Sidmouth Town 2-5 Falmouth Town (League Cup)

Last five games: Camelford

Nov 20: Camelford 1-2 St Austell (SWPL)
Nov 13: Dobwalls 1-0 Camelford (SWPL)
Nov 6: Saltash United 3-2 Camelford (Senior Cup)
Oct 30: Camelford 3-3 Wendron United (SWPL)
Oct 27: Camelford 6-0 Godolphin Atlantic (SWPL)