Dover Athletic 0 Worcester City 2
By Tom Howard
Lowly Worcester City dented Dover Athletic’s Blue Square South play-off hopes with a victory at Crabble on Tuesday night.
With points crucial at this stage of the season, Dover, who dominated in large parts, were unable to find a way past Worcester.
The Whites were forced to rue their missed chances as second-half goals from Marc McGregor and Rob Elvins condemned Andy Hessenthaler's side to a surprise home defeat.
Dover came out of the blocks quickly and immediately pinned Worcester in their own half. Matt Fish’s attacking runs caused the visitors all sorts of problems and it was one of his long throws that created the first chance on six minutes. Luis Cumbers latched onto the throw but his looping header went narrowly wide.
Long-range efforts from Hakeem Adelakun and Jake Leberl followed shortly after, but they were comfortably saved by goalkeeper Danzelle St Louis-Hamilton.
Worcester were restricted to few opportunities and their best of the first-half came on 19 minutes. Dover failed to deal with a free-kick and McGregor powered a free header wide of Ross Flitney’s goal.
The Whites went on the attack and three minutes later they should have taken the lead. Nicky Southall’s long ball found Frannie Collin and with time and space in the area, he blazed over.
Hessenthaler’s side ended the half with a succession of corners, but were unable to make the most of them, leaving the home crowd frustrated at half-time.
Worcester made a change at the break with Matt Dinsmore introduced up front and it led to an impressive start to the second-half from the visitors.
A well-struck volley from Craig Wilding and McGregor’s flick from a Jamie Price free-kick forced smart saves from Flitney.
The visitors opened the scoring just after the hour mark when Graham Ward's free-kick found McGregor who planted a volley into the bottom corner of the net.
The home side issued an immediate response through Adelakun and substitute Shaun Welford. The latter came closest to finding the net, when he fired over after receiving a defence-splitting knock down from Adam Birchall.
The home side dominated possession, but struggled to break down the Worcester defence and saw all hope fade, when, with four minutes to play, Worcester netted a second. A Jamie Price corner was flicked into the net by the head of Rob Elvins.
Dover will be desperate to return to winning ways and get their play-off bid back on track when they travel to Basingstoke this Saturday.
Attendance: 655
Dover Athletic (4-3-3): Flitney, Fish, Leach, Schulz, Hill (Rogers 70 mins), Leberl, Southall, Adelakun, Collin, Birchall, Cumbers (Welford 61 mins)
Subs not used: Moore, Walder, Whitehouse
Worcester City (4-4-2): St Louis-Hamilton, Ward, Daniel, Elvins, Price, Davies, Walker, Wilding, Emery, Owen (Dinsmore 45 mins), McGregor (Heeley 88mins)
Subs not used: Connolly,Meredith
POSTED: 09/03/2010 21:46:07
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