Falmouth Town 1; Worcester Raiders 1.
Massey 61’ Prince Henry 45+1’
Att: 232.

Falmouth Town managed to salvage a home point against league newcomers Worcester Raiders in what was a game of poor quality, with very few chances having been created.

Falmouth manager John Fabby again opted to make some changes from last week’s game as he seeks to utilise his strong squad, perhaps with Tuesday’s home game against Bideford in mind. In came Jack Webber, Ollie Evans, Josh Bissett and Bradley Leivers in place of Luke Barner, Andy Elcock, Tom Annear and Jack Symons.

It was an unusually lethargic start for Falmouth with several misplaced passes and a seemingly general lack of urgency and application, and the first 20 minutes yielded no chances of note from either side. Worcester Raiders were looking to run down the clock at every restart and referee Tim Burley was prompted several times from the Town faithful to start count-downs from the throw-ins and goal kicks.

Worcester started to threaten in the latter stages of the half, forcing two good saves from Morgan Jones in a five-minute spell as Falmouth continued to look disorganised, with lots of forward passes being overhit.

Falmouth had to wait 36 minutes for their first chance of the game. Josh Bissett went on a run down the right flank, beat his man, cut in and shot across the keeper, forcing the save from Charlie Emery, who parried the ball to safety.
With the half looking like ending goal-less, disaster struck for Falmouth in the second minute of stoppage time. A missed clearance let in pacy Worcester Centre-Forward Prince Henry, who outran the home defence and shot past Jones to make it 1-0 to Worcester.

Falmouth made a change at half-time bringing on the influential Luke Barner for Liam Prynn, and he took his place wide on the right with Oscar Massey playing down the middle in place of Prynn. Falmouth immediately started playing with more energy, and after eight minutes Bissett nearly opened his Falmouth account as he hit the post after a period of Falmouth pressure.

With Falmouth now in the ascendancy, they grabbed the all-important equaliser. Luke Barner playing the ball over the top of the Worcester defence to Massey, who homed in on Emery before hitting a powerful strike into the new black and amber nets.

The majority in Bickland Park would have expected their side to kick on again to force the winner, but with both teams making lots of changes in the last quarter of the game it became a bit of a stalemate. However, with 5 minutes remaining, Falmouth had a real chance to steal all three points. A great pass inside the Worcester left back from Max Cook found Barner whose cross from the bye-line reached substitute Ned Symons. His first time effort comfortably beat Emery, but it couldn’t beat the crossbar and Worcester survived to take a deserved point back up the M5.

With favourable results elsewhere, Falmouth find themselves in 11th position in the league, so the upcoming home game on Tuesday night against Bideford takes on extra importance as they look to mount an assault on the play-off places. That being said, they will need to put in a better performance than today to achieve that goal.

Falmouth Town: Morgan Jones, Malachy Davy, Max Cook, Harrison Jewell, Bradley Leivers, Jared Sims©, Jack Webber, Olly Evans, Josh Bissett, Oscar Massey, Liam Prynn. Subs: Jack Symons, Luke Barner, Ned Symons, Andy Elcock, Tom Annear.

Worcester Raiders: Charlie Emery, Taylor Eades, Jordon Kondo, Ben Sanogo, Sam Kelly, Jake Donnelly, Logan Stoddart, Cameron Monteith, Prince Henry, Jordan Murphy, Stan Asomugha. Subs: Kurtis Wood, Adam Taylor, Emanuel Olaloko, George Hadley, Syrus Warren-Paul.

Ref: Tim Burley.