Pagham punished at Hassocks

Everything looked bright for the visitors for the first quarter of an hour as they squandered three decent chances to take the lead, Grant Radmore, David Crouch and Joe Clarke being the unfortunate ones to miss out.

In the 22nd minute Pagham keeper Conor Kelly made a sparkling one-on-one save to keep the score level and the game started to change from that moment on.

Pagham’s early momentum seemed to fade as Hassocks surged in confidence and started to push forward in earnest. A minute later and Pitcher scored from the penalty spot and it was always going to be an uphill struggle from then on for the Lions.

On 42 minutes Conor Geoghegan had a header cleared off the Hassocks goal-line but that was a rare foray into the home team’s penalty area and once again Kelly was forced into another terrific save to keep the score at 0-1.

Pagham started the second half better and Radmore forced the Robins' keeper into a good save fairly early on. There was very little other action of note until the 81st minute when the Lions only half cleared a corner and Pitcher pounced again for 0-2.

Pagham clicked it up a gear and two minutes later sub Jamie Carroll pulled a goal back smashing home a volley from the edge of the box to pull it back to 1-2.

Jared Rance had a shot well saved after 88 before Kelly was forced into another excellent save at the other end. A Pagham shot from close in bounced off the post and away in the second minute of added time and the last play of the game saw Carroll try his luck again only to see the ball agonisingly spin wide of the far post.

Pagham manager Kerry Hardwell said: "It was a very frustrating game of football. We’re asking the boys to be more consistent this season as a group in matches training. After Saturday’s victory against Crawley Down Gatwick I expected another hard game against Hassocks however with the intentions of three points.

"The boys started well and for 20 minutes bossed the game and should have been ahead. Hassocks is always a tough place to go and even more so when you go behind which we did.

"In the second half we controlled the game but again like a lot of games so far we’ve not punished teams and we got punished for it late on. We must find this ruthless streak from our forward players immediately for us to have a successful season it’s something we’ll be be working very hard on in training because if we’d taken our chances last night we’d have won the game."

Pagham: Conor Kelly, Tom Atkinson, Ryan Hallett (Jake Heryet), Joe Clarke, Dylan Jelley, Conor Geoghegan, Ollie Hambleton (Jamie Carroll), Joe Bennett (Jared Rance), Sam Connolly, Grant Radmore, & David Crouch. Subs not used: Ash Hawkes & Scott Rafferty.