National League South: Taunton Town 1-0 Hampton & Richmond Borough

TAUNTON Town lost their first home match of the 2023/24 National League South campaign on Saturday (October 21).

Hampton & Richmond Borough were able to hold on to a 1-0 lead after an early goal to take home the three points.

Taunton had the large majority of possession and were able to get the ball forward almost constantly, however the Peacocks were unable to score.

The result, combined with results elsewhere, mean Taunton stay in second place in the league table, but missed another opportunity to go top.

For Hampton, they jump up to 13th place after earning their fifth win of the season.

The visitors took an early lead in this match as in the second minute the away side found space on the right win before a cutback met Mason Bloomfield in the box who bundled the ball in.

A soft goal to concede for Taunton who are usually rock solid at home, and the home crowd of 843 were vocal in their disappointment with the early goal.

From there though, Taunton pushed on and created chance after chance, often coming from crosses into the box from Ollie Chamberlain on the right and Jay Foulston on the right.

However Nat Jarvis in the middle was unable to connect with these crosses as the striker was kept quiet by the Hampton defence for the game.

There was a shout for handball in the box and looked a clear penalty but the referee waved it away much to the annoyance of the Taunton players.

At the break it remained 1-0 and it was clear that the visitors were happy to consolidate and hold on to the lead.

And they did that in the second half as they continued to sit deep and nullify Taunton attacks.

There were yellow cards shown to a number of players on both sides as Taunton were frustrated and with ten minutes to go, Hampton began running the ball to the corner to waste time.

The tactic worked for the away side though as the referee blew the whistle after 10 minutes of added time and the score was 1-0.

A tough loss for Taunton to take but a lesson learned perhaps. When you have possession you need to convert it to chances.