Bridgwater United 0-0 Cadbury Heath

UNITED'S already heavily depleted playing resources were dealt another blow when regular keeper Jake Viney was sidelined because of Covid, writes Mark Hollidge.

However, this presented an opportunity for the Robins to provide a debut to young Jaden Hurd, son of the legendary Kevin Hurd.

Hurd senior has obviously coached his son well because he had a confident, unbeaten debut.

The point gained from this game was probably more meaningful for Cadbury Heath as it helps them to put a bit of space between themselves and other relegation threatened teams.

They deserved the draw and United did not deserve to win. United’s much changed line up, containing several youngsters, struggled to find any fluency and for most of the game it was the visitors who were sharper, linked their game better and had more goal attempts.

The Robins desperately miss the engine room of Tom Llewellyn and Morgan Williams in particular.

Cadbury Heath earned seven corners before United had even earned one and that tells you a lot about the balance of play. Nevertheless, United did have a spell of fifteen minutes or so, midway through the second half, when they could have claimed all the points.

In that period Nick Woodrow controlled a difficult bouncing ball and quickly struck a twenty yards volley which Jordan Schofield shovelled around the post.

Ross Edwards blasted over from ten yards after some pinball in the penalty area and Jack Taylor had the ball in the net, after a great move involving Woodrow and Ryan Brereton, but he was considered to be offside.

Brereton, in the first half, had tested the Cadbury Heath keeper with a low shot which he saved with his body and soon after that George King’s long-range effort swerved in flight and Schofield had to watch that one carefully.

At the other end, the experienced and canny, Matt Huxley tried to catch Hurd out with a volley from the edge of the box, but the keeper saw it coming.

Tom Withers’ attempted cross got caught on the breeze and turned into a testing shot. Despite the sun being in exactly the wrong place, Hurd got back to push the dipping ball over.

Tall striker Ali Boyer had a chance in each half. After a bit of a juggle, he fired too high then, early in the second half, Hurd made an important block from Boyer and got injured in the process.

In spite of the general air of mediocrity there were good performances by Ross Edwards and Jake Llewellyn, to go with the debutant keeper.