Shepton Mallet take the sting out of The Bees with 3-0 win

By Guest

16th Jul 2021 | Local Sport

Shepton Mallet's unbeaten start to this season continued at Bridport yesterday evening (August 20) with an impressive 3-0 win.

The whole side played well, with Jack Fillingham making a quickfire start with his second double strike in four days, scoring after 11 and 12 minutes.

The opener came when Andy Martin's well-directed free kick to the far post was headed back across the six-yard box by Conrad Peck for Fillingham to squeeze a header past home keeper Scott Wells-Burr from a tight angle.

Shepton quickly regained possession from the restart and as Fillingham broke into the opposing area he was blatantly blocked off for the referee to immediately blow and point to the spot.

Fillingham hammered the penalty past Wells-Burr to put his miss at Clevedon four days earlier to bed and put his side firmly in the driving seat.

Play overall up to the break was fairly evenly shared, the difference between the sides being that Shepton's back line was in imperious form and cleared out any signs of danger like a well oiled machine, such that the home side hardly had a sniff on goal.

Shepton, though, did more with the ball when they had it and could have added to their tally more than once as Finn Haines went close from Aaron Cockerill's well hit cross, Fillingham hit a dipping shot just too high, and Martin forced a decent stop from Wells-Burr with an angled free kick.

Early in the second period, Shepton keeper Jonny Hill made his first meaningful save following a Bridport free kick, and Hill's quick punt upfield saw Fillingham race into a scoring position only to put his shot too high.

A trip on Finn Haines in the 53rd minute looked perilously close to handing Shepton a second penalty but the referee thought it was just outside the area and awarded only a free kick.

It mattered not, however, as Martin stepped forward and buried a low shot into the bottom corner against his former club for Shepton's third.

Wells-Burr could only push away another Martin free kick into the path of Asa White shortly afterwards, before White's shot scraped a post and went just wide, and Jordan Lovibond in particular had three or four chances to increase his side's tally without success.

As in the first period, Bridport saw their share of the ball, but every cross pumped into the Shepton box was superbly defended and played out with confidence as the side registered a fine win.

Skipper Liam Watson was outstanding, Fillingham his usual predatory self, with six goals from four games now, with Keiran Bailey, Finn Haines and Asa White having their best games so far.

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