Carlsberg South West Peninsula premier

TAVISTOCK AFC 4

LAUNCESTON 0

TAVISTOCK moved to within six points of league leaders Plymouth Argyle, with four games in hand after this victory.

The Lambs dominated possession from the start and deservedly opened the scoring in the 18th minute, when a corner kick resulted in Matt David heading the ball back across the goal for Josh Grant to head home from six yards.

For all their pressure the Lambs applied on the visitors’ defence they failed to extend their advantage. They were guilty of poor decision making in the attacking third of the pitch. Their passing was played at a slow tempo and the final ball in and around the penalty area was poor, giving the Launceston defence the opportunity to break up numerous attacks and block shots on target.

The visitors were restricted to counter attacks, and the nearest they came to scoring was an effort from Mitchell who fired over the bar from 20 yards.

Manager Henderson must have had some strong words at half time as the second half was a great improvement with an increase in intensity and tempo in their play, but the home side were still finding difficult to break down a resolute Launceston defence.

On the hour Tavistock made two substitutions with Jack Crago and Dave Hallett replacing Tyler Elliott and Luke Brown.

A great move minutes later saw Crago play a fine ball to Josh Robins, his squared pass found Josh Grant but his fine effort was brilliantly saved by Colwell in the visitors’ goal. Liam Prynn then replaced Sam Davey.

The home team deservedly doubled their lead in the 67th minute when a deep corner kick by Hallett saw Warren Daw rise and head the ball back across the box and there was Crago, who rifled the ball home from ten yards. Two minutes later Hallett played a great ball to McCauley but his fine effort was brilliantly saved by Colwill.

Another fine move opened up the visitors’ defence and Colwill dragged man of the match Josh Grant to the ground. The referee had no hesitation in awarding a penalty.

Grant stepped up to blast the spot kick home.

In the dying minute the Lambs added a fourth goal when McCauley played a great pass to Crago who waltzed past two defenders, before flashing the ball past Colwill at his near post to complete the scoring.

Manager Stuart Henderson, who rested some key players for the Launceston fixture ahead of a busy schedule, said: ‘We made a number of changes which always going to affect the fluency of how we perform. Despite leading 1-0 at the interval we were disappointed at how we passed the ball and the tempo we played at today.

‘We started the same in the second half but once we went ahead 2-0 the shackles were unleashed and if it were not for the Launceston keeper we could have scored at least another two goals on top of the four we achieved.’