Defeat provides Harrison with trialist inspection

Saturday afternoon saw a much-changes Nomads lineup lose out 1-0 to Wingate and Finchley at The Quay 3G.

The starting eleven featured no less than five trialists, with only one having featured so far in some of our other pre-season friendlies.

The entire front four for The Nomads comprised of trialists along with a defender and the early exchanges saw The Nomads dominate much of the possession over the London-based side. Our central midfield trialist was regularly getting on the ball and found a number of neat passes despite being under pressure and looked to link up with our right wing trialist who also caught the eye throughout.

There was little to comment on for the majority of the first half, but the visitors grew into the game and forced two good saves from Andy Firth just before the half time whistle to keep the scores level, as well as Wingate and Finchley seeing a late header ruled out for offside.

At half time, Callum Morris and Ryan Harrington made way for Harry Franklin and another trialist with both having played the full 90 minutes on Tuesday night against Colwyn Bay.

With around an hour gone, a long ball over the top from the Wingate defence landed between Ben Nash and Andy Firth and it was Theo Ofori who pounced on the loose ball for the visitors, rounding Firth to send them 1-0 up with one of the few clear-cut chances of the game for both sides.

One of The Nomads' most clear-cut chances came when two of our trialists combined with our threatening right winger cutting a ball back to the penalty spot in a crowded area before our left winger came in to meet the cut back only to see his sidefooted effort go inches wide.

The second half saw a number of changes for The Nomads with the finishing eleven having six of last season's Under 19 scholars taking part with Louis Holden, Josh Watkin, Charlie Davies, Ben Farley and Jonny Sodhi all joining Josh Williams on the pitch.

It was one of our other substitutes who came closest to drawing us level as Aron Williams broke in behind the defence twice, firstly flashing a ball across the face of the goal which one of our trialist attackers couldn't quite get on the end of and later in the half, Williams seemed to be through on goal and struck past the keeper before being given offside to deny him an equaliser.

Following the game, Craig Harrison spoke to Nik Mesney to comment on the result.

Match Photos

Match Report by Nik Mesney