Calor League Division 1 South & West

Bridgwater Town 0 Shortwood United 3

BRIDGWATER Town conceded three goals in the second half to crash to a 3-0 defeat at home to Shortwood United on Saturday.

After a quiet opening period, goals from Matthew Bennett, Tim Haddock and Lewis Sommers fired the visitors to a comfortable victory.

Shortwood began the game well and went close on five minutes when Hancock stroked the ball wide from the edge of the penalty area.

The visitors continued to press, but the Robins’ defence held firm to send the sides into the break all square.

Bridgwater’s resistance didn’t last long after the interval as Bennett fired home a powerful effort from 25 yards to give Shortwood the lead.

On 66 minutes, Sommers headed home a Josh Egan cross to double the lead, and with nine minutes remaining Haddock put the game beyond any doubt with a neat volley from 15 yards.

With two league wins in four games now, Town manager Richard Fey was quick to praise the efforts of his players against a Shortwood side who reached the first round of the FA Cup last season.

Fey said: “We were just beaten by a better side – that’s it really.

“They’re my favourites for promotion this season.

“You’ve only got to look at their finances to see why – they brought in nearly £200,000 from the FA Cup last season and it’s difficult to compete with.

“The scary thing was that they didn’t even have their top scorer playing – Duncan Cully, who has been on trial at Bristol Rovers.

“They fully deserved the win, and at the end of the day it’s going to be tough to compete with sides that have a lot of money.

“We haven’t got that financial power and that’s why we’re favourites to go down.

“We’ve got to pick up as many points as we can as quickly as possible and try to stay up.

“It has been a great start and I’m over the moon with how we’ve played so far this season.

“It’s a bit of a ‘welcome to reality’ for us really – it’s going to be hard to compete with the big boys in the league.

“We’ve got to make sure we beat the sides around us and pick up the points where we can.”