Evostik Southern S&W 1

Wantage Town 0, Bridgwater Town 1

DEAN Griffiths scored the only goal of the game on four minutes as Bridgwater edged out ten-man Wantage Town on Saturday, writes Eddie Robinson.

Griffiths fired home from 12 yards in the opening stages to help the visitors continue their impressive away form so far this season.

Chamberlain won the ball in midfield and his incisive pass found Griffiths who burst through before finding the bottom corner with a strong shot.

Wantage got back into the game with Thorne dominant. As the players were lining up for a corner conceded by Rudge, Lovegrove fouled keeper John when the ball was not in play and was sent-off after 25 minutes.

Against ten men, Bridgwater were generally quite comfortable, with Thomas and Rudge in control in the middle of the defence.

Further forward, Tooze and Griffiths were each using both flanks to threaten the home goal – and Bushin and Burn just failed to get on the end of good crosses.

The pitch survived a pre-match inspection after the recent rains had caused the postponement of the mid-week match.

Early in the second half, Wantage had claims for a penalty when Janes was flattened by the onrushing John when chasing a through ball.

Bridgwater had chances to seal the game three times when they had one-on-one opportunities but each time Tucker won his duels.

Midway through the half, Griffiths and Tooze were withdrawn to the relief of the Wantage defenders, this gave the opportunity for McNab who had been Bridgwater’s leading goal scorer two seasons ago, to mark his return to the club.

Town: John, Grimshaw, Rudge, Thomas, Allward, Robertson, Chamberlain, Burn (Bridges 90), Griffiths (McNab 66), Bushin, Tooze (Welling 78)

l Bridgwater travel to Stratford this weekend.