Frome Town 1-2 Weymouth – Calor League Southern Premier Division, Saturday 28th December 2013

Two late goals from Weymouth’s Stewart Yetton left Frome still looking for their first home league win of the season, but after they had controlled the game and taken the lead on the hour, the signs are that the elusive win is not too far away now.

Manager Adrian Foster’s second game in charge of Frome probably arrived without the chance of a training session as the matches come thick and fast around the Christmas / New Year period, and the pre-match plans had to be altered as Tim Stephenson got caught up in the aftermath of a traffic incident, meaning that Rhys Baggridge dropped back to play centre half alongside Josh Ford.

Frome were a little slow to get going at the start and a close range header past the post and two corners from Weymouth threatened early on, but as the match settled, Frome started to get the better of both possession and territory.

A crisp right wing cross from Ricky Hulbert found the head of Matt Groves in the 18th minute, but the striker was always falling backwards and Jason Matthews had an easy save to make. Groves was again denied by Matthews as he shot from 6 yards out, with the goalkeeper saving with his body.

Ben Wood’s long throws, corners and free kicks were providing most of Frome’s scoring opportunities, but Weymouth’s centre half pairing of Mike Walker and Sam Poole towered over all the Frome players, and, predictably, dealt with everything in the air without too many problems. Though Darren Chitty had been a spectator for most of the first half, Weymouth looked sharp in the minutes leading up to half time, but some desperate defending ensured that the half time score remained at 0-0.

With Stephenson having arrived at the ground after the match , Frome made a tactical substitution at half time as he was brought on to replace Hulbert, and they were very quick out of the blocks at the start of the second half, and after a Matt Smith header was just tipped over the bar by Jason Matthews in the 49th, they took the lead in the 58th minute as Matt Groves shot home from close range after a Smith shot came back off the post.

Frome were very close to going 2-0 up six minutes later as a Ledgister corner allowed Stephenson to volley from close range only to be denied by an amazing save from Matthews that he probably knew very little about.

At this stage, Frome looked like going on to win the match, but Weymouth then decided to play a high risk game as they started to defend on the half way line, gambling on the fact that they could play the game in the Frome half, but always being at risk to the pace of Smith and Wood on the counter attack.

Unfortunately for Frome, the tactic paid off and after a period of Weymouth pressure, they equalised through Stewart Yetton as he found space behind his marker to shoot home from 10 yards out.

At this stage it could have gone either way, with Weymouth only just managing to deal with the Frome counter attacks, and Frome having to defend deep inside their own half, but then in the 87th minute Yetton showed why he is rated as one of the top strikers in the division as he produced a perfect first touch to a long ball that enabled him to turn and hit a perfect dipping right foot volley over Chitty and into the net for the winner.

Matt Groves was awarded the his second successive “H&B Tyres Man of the Man Award” by match sponsors “The Artful Dodgers”, on an afternoon where, once again, he was a continual thorn in the side of the opposing defence, and with a little more protection from the referee could well have scored more than his one goal. Crowd: 392. Entertainment Value: 4