We win together, we lose together

Masters of our own downfall

Kings Langley produced arguably their best home performance of the season to stun Weymouth with a 2-1 victory and knock them off the summit of the Southern League Premier Division South table.

Weymouth's Mark Molesley bemoaned not getting the ‘rub of the green’ after Weymouth returned from the Sadiku Stadium empty handed on Saturday afternoon.

Molesley’s side fell behind in the 5th minute after Steve Ward fired in an effort at the back post from a set-piece.

Molesley said, “It was frustrating but I’m also proud of the boys, we didn’t get the rub of the green today.

“We were masters of our own downfall in the first five minutes, we’ve got to hold our hands up. We started slow and sluggish and didn’t defend the set-piece properly.

“We didn’t quite clear our lines, the ball ricocheted and fell to their player who dispatched it nicely. It’s a wake-up call again in the first five minutes, but we woke up.”

Weymouth responded well and looked to have won a penalty when Calvin Brooks was brought down in the box by Kings Langley keeper Tokarczyk, but the appeals were ignored by the referee Conor Farrell. From the resulting break-away Jordan Rose was given a second yellow for colliding with Rene Howe.

Molesley was pleased with the Terras response to conceding early saying, “We were knocking on their door straight away with a range of set-pieces, they just managed to keep the ball out the net a few times. It felt like it was just a matter of time.

“Calvin beat their goalkeeper to the ball, you’ve heard him get smashed, he went down and it was a penalty to everybody else in the crowd. Even their fans were laughing about it, unfortunately the referee has somehow not thought it was a penalty.

“From the resulting clearance Jordan Rose, who has been out a while, misjudged his tackle and picked up his second booking. So we’ve gone from a penalty to ten-men.

“It’s difficult but that’s football, you can’t control referees and decisions but it’s how you react and I was really proud of our boys. 10-men and 1-0 down and we’ve absolutely dominated the game, we kept the ball and created chances.”

Weymouth started the second-half brightly when Calvin Brooks broke free of the Kings Langley’s defence to equalise for the Terras, but on the hour-mark a wonder-strike from Luke Wade-Slater proved to be enough to seal the three points for Kings Langley.

“I was really pleased with the spirit and attitude of the boys,” Molesley continued. “It is easy to feel sorry for yourselves but we didn’t, and then we got hit with a sucker-punch. Their guy has hit it from 30-yards, I can’t imagine he’ll hit too many better than that this season, it’s hit the post and gone in.

“It’s a difficult one to take because we had more and enough of the ball and created plenty of chances to get something from the game.

“It wasn’t to be, it was one of those days where maybe we ran over a cat on the way in. We’ve now got a big game on Tuesday.

“The difference between the two teams was a little bit of ‘lady-luck’ and unfortunately that wasn’t on our side.

“We win together, we lose together. We’ve got to dust ourselves off and go on Tuesday.”

Weymouth FC / Dorset Echo