Lancers over come battling Chi to climb into fifth

Lancers’ joint boss Martin Gander was pleased with his side’s response after they had slipped to just their second league defeat of the season on Saturday as they went down 2-0 at Three Bridges.

It looked at times on Tuesday night, however, that the Culver Road side could be falling to consecutive defeats against Chichester, who held off Lancing’s dominance to 20 minutes into the second half.

The home side had gone behind early on as Sam O’Regan tried to play the ball out from the back lost it, and the ball was squared to Tom Groom, who tapped home.

A bare-bones Chichester then seemed content to settle with their one-goal lead, especially in the second half, when they had to play with 10 men due to an injury, while another player left on the pitch was also injured.

Lancers’ pressure and persistence evetually paid off as Graham Martin played a part in forcing an own goal as the equaliser, before with six minutes left Wayne Joseph hit a brilliant strike into the top corner.

Gander said: “The fact we won and got the three points was good, but Chichester are struggling a bit at the moment and we gave them a goal in the first five minutes and they were happy to bring everyone back.

“They were happy just to try and keep their one-goal advantage – even in the first half they were going for the corners trying to kill the game, so it wasn’t much of a spectacle.

“It was a matter of when we were going to score as we were so dominant, but you always have a doubt of maybe it’s not going to come.

“They set up with two banks of four and were happy just to kick forwards.”

Gander added: “Back up to fifth again, though, which is great. We got 18 points from 10 games, so just two points off averaging two a game.

“We’ve got Rye away Saturday now, so if we come away from that with anything it’ll be ideal.”

LANCING: Di Bernardo; Taylor, Pickford, O’Regan, Denyer; McCloughlin, Boswell, Hayward, Annis; Martin, Joseph. Subs: Sadough (Annis 65), Paterson (Boswell 80), Turner (O’Regan 60), Sims, Elliot.