Carlsberg South West Peninsula division one West
Hayle 1
Okehampton Argyle 1
THE strong wind at Hayle gusting towards one end made this a game of two halves, but both sides coped with the conditions well to produce a fine game of football.
Argyle, playing with the wind at their backs in the first half, started well and produced some lovely passing movements to worry the home defence. Luke Alden was dictating play in midfield and most of Argyle's best moves came through him.
Hayle were always dangerous on the counter attack and Argyle keeper Harry Geering had to be alert to deal with shots from Hayle's Dan Bell and Gary Curtis.
Play swung back to the other end and on the half-hour, Luke Alden cleverly beat his man to surge into the home box, before being brought down. Up stepped Ben Ferguson to crash home the spot kick and give Okehampton a deserved lead.
As half-time approached, Argyle put together a superb move down the left involving five or six clinical passes but Alex Wren's testing final cross was well dealt with by Hayle keeper Tom Annear.
Argyle changed the formation from 4-4-2 to 4-5-1 at the break, sudstituting centre-forward Brad Ausden with midfielder Jonjo Fellows and full-back Corey Burns with the more defensively minded Dale Chadwick. Unfortunately, this seemed to upset Argyle's rhythm and Luke Alden who had been so dominant in midfield in the first half was forced to play wider where he was unable to exert the same influence.
With the wind behind them, Hayle began to have most of the play and Argyle's back four performed heroically to keep the home side at bay. With only one man up front, Okehampton were only able to mount sporadic counter-attacks, and too often defensive clearances came straight back at the Argyle defence with no chance to relieve the pressure.
On 63 minutes, Hayle equalised when a good cross in from the right was headed against the Argyle bar by Gary Bell and the rebound was volleyed home by Adam Freethy.
Okehampton showed great spirit not to fold at this stage and began to put some dangerous moves together again. Ben Waters was working tirelessly up front and causing problems to the home defence and when he won a free-kick about 30 yards out, Matt Sanders fired in a fine effort which was well saved by Annear. But back came Hayle again as the game drew to a close, and Geering kept things level with a fine save from a Matt Thomas free kick.
This was a good game in difficult conditions with credit due to both sides and referee A Howes for keeping the game flowing. Defenders Stuart Entwhistle, Alex Wren and captain James Williams all had outstanding games for Argyle.