Peacehaven overcome the Trophy bug

Peacehaven's weekend did not begin very well with an illness sweeping through the team the club were barely able to get 14 players on the coach. There was definitely an aim of just getting a draw as we left. Manager Shaun Saunders was also unavailable for the match and so Tony Coade was in charge for the day.

Fortunately a good journey from Sussex to Bedfordshire allowed some players to get some rest and start the game looking better than they felt.

For the first five minutes both teams attempted to get a feel for the game with a lot of high balls flying around. After 5 minutes peacehaven could have taken the lead as Tom Burton slid into the 6 yard box he met the incoming cross only for it to roll wide of the post.

The next 15 minutes were unexpected on the day but wrapped the match up. An uncleared ball found Lloyd Cotton in the area who was able to drive a low shot through after 9 minutes which was shortly followed up by an attacking run from Josh Jones into the area enabling him to strike a hard shot the keeper got a limb to but couldn't stop.

Peacehaven fans were pleased but with that Horsham game still fresh in the mind were hoping Peacehaven could close out the next 70 minutes. To be fair they did and they did it well. Steve Metcalfe added a third after 38 minutes chipping over the keeper from the left edge of the box into the bottom right corner to make things pretty certain.

Barton were not playing badly but were lacking an attacking option following the recent loss of their top scorer back to the division above.

The whole second half was fairly quiet with the defence putting together a sturdy performance to limit any Barton attacks. The only real other mentions were the reintroduction of Walker for the first time after his operation and Hammond making his first senior appearance for the club. Peacehaven were controlling the match and whilst playing deeper restricted Barton to mainly midfield tustles and some occasional interjections from the referee. Di Bernado didn't have a shot to save and was able to just catch a few balls that came into the box.

The next round was predrawn and so following Dunstable's 4-1 win over Erith & Belvedere Peacehaven have another coach trip to Bedfordshire in 2 weeks.