South Zeal Utd 3
Royal Marines 2
HAVING lost heavily away to the Marines at the start of the season this was a win to savour as Zeal produced their best performance of the season to take a much needed three points on Saturday.
From the start the back three of Lee Gilbert, Scott Hooper and John Halliday gave no room to the visitor's strikers and Robbie Sandercock and Dan Wakeham kept their wide attackers under control and were also always a threat when Zeal attacked.
As usual Harley Cann's pace and trickery were causing the visitors defense problems and Zeal should have taken the lead after 15 minutes but the post got in the way of the penalty but five minutes later Tom Reilly put Harley Cann through and he finished well from close range.
Zeal went two up when Darren Gilbert and Ben Davey exchanged passes to put Harley through again and he made no mistake from close range.
In the second half the visitors put the Zeal defence under extreme pressure but could not put the ball past Reg Wonnacot in the Zeal goal but with 20 minutes left they reduced the deficit from a good header and then pushed hard for the equaliser which came 10 minutes later after a scramble in the Zeal penalty area.
Having hit the post three times in the game Zeal always looked dangerous and they deservedly got the winner five minutes from time when Garry Smith and Jamie Atherton put Harley away on the right, he cut inside beat two defenders and hit an unstoppable shot into the roof of the net to win the game and complete a great hat-trick.