Daring risk pays off for Spitfires

While ex-Saint Martin Foyle described Southport’s 2-1 defeat at Eastleigh as “unlucky”, victorious Spitfires boss Richard Hill viewed it from a different perspective.

In his book, the three Vanarama Conference points were deserved reward for being adventurous when it would have been all too easy for Eastleigh to have settled for a share of the spoils.

Yet when Hill gambled on a triple substitution at 1-1 with 13 minutes to play, it so nearly came back to haunt him.

Seven minutes after throwing on Yemi Odubade, Stuart Fleetwood and Ben Wright, primarily to add more width, the plan was in dire danger of backfiring when Wright went down with a knee injury and could play no further part.

It left Eastleigh to see out the remaining six minutes, plus four of stoppage time, with ten men as they sought to make amends for carelessly throwing their 49th-minute lead away.

But just when it looked as if Southport – without a league win on their travels for 13 months – looked set to take at least a point back to Merseyside, disaster struck for visitors in the second minute of time added on.

There was seemingly nothing on for Eastleigh when James Constable headed on a long ball down the middle but, to the sheer delight of the Stoneham Lane faithful behind the clubhouse end goal, former Hereford defender Dom Collins obligingly headed into his own net after a breakdown of communication with his ’keeper.

As Collins crouched down in sheer horror and disbelief, his Eastleigh namesake Jamie will have had an inkling of how he felt.

With just over an hour gone, the Spitfires midfielder had fatally surrendered possession some 20 yards from his own goal, allowing Joe Connor to race through and slot the easiest of equalisers past exposed keeper Ross Flitney.

It was a crushing blow to Eastleigh who, at that stage, had looked set to build on their 49th-minute breakthrough.

Luke Foster fouled Constable 20 yards out and Michael Green – back from a three-match suspension – tapped the free kick to Jai Reason whose precision strike sailed in to the right of ’keeper Danny Lloyd-Weston.

Reflecting on a rollercoaster second half and his gamble of a triple substitution, Hill said: “I wouldn’t blame JC (Collins) for the Southport equaliser because, if you look what happened just before, Jai Reason or Ben Strevens could have cleared it. It just happens that it fell to JC.

“It goes to show that, at this level, you can’t afford to make a mistake, especially so close to your own goal.

“After last week (a 2-0 defeat at Macclesfield) I could have said ‘let’s take a point’ , but when you’ve got a squad like I’ve got, I just had a feeling there was something left in it for us.

“We were getting outnumbered midfield and I thought a bit of width might help us.

“It would have been easy to put on two subs and keep another up my sleeve, but I put three on to try and win the game. You can’t legislate for what happened to Ben Wright.

“Southport will look at it (the winning goal) as a bit unlucky, but sometimes you deserve a little bit of luck when you go bold.

“That was a good performance by us today, full of tempo.

“If we hadn’t turned up in the first half, there wouldn’t have been a game because Southport didn’t try and play against us. But we saw a different Southport in the second half and, once we’d scored, they came out and looked decent.”

For the third time this season Eastleigh pulled in a four-figure crowd as they made it ten points banked from a possible 12 at the Silverlake.

Among the 1,309 attendees on Non-League Day were FA chairman Greg Dyke and World Cup final referee Howard Webb.

Given Webb’s presence, it was fitting that Saturday’s man in the middle, Adam Bromley of Plymouth, controlled proceedings so well that he received glowing praise from Hill.

“I thought he was exceptional,” said the Eastleigh boss. “When you go away from home you need the referee to be strong and he gave Southport as many decisions as he gave us.

“Today we’ve seen a strong official who refereed honestly and fairly for both sides. I’m not saying others don’t, but I thought he was decent.”

Southport’s Salisbury-born boss Foyle – a Saint in the early ’80s – was happy enough with his side’s performance. “We have been unlucky today, but unfortunately we didn’t keep our concentration for the full game,” he summed up.

Eastleigh, up to fifth, return to action tomorrow away to 20th-placed Dartford, who lost 2-1 at Altrincham. Wright will be assessed at training today, as will left-back Matt Fry, who missed Saturday with a sore Achilles.