It was a nightmare on Halloween weekend for Simon Martin’s Dial Square side, as they lost yesterday’s opening match in the Premier Challenge Cup’, against old foes, Worplesdon Phoenix.

Worplesdon came out of the blocks showing that this game was personal and were quickest to everything and set a decent tempo very early on, which pinned The Dial onto the back foot.
However, it was the visitors who took the lead after just five minutes when the home side gave away a penalty for a foul on Nic Donaldson.
Up stepped Nic to convert the penalty and Dial Square had take a shock lead.

That didn’t last too long. As the hosts kept up their strong tackling and hunger to win every ball, they started to create gaps with some good football and after a superb defence-splitting pass to O’Halloran, he was through one on one with Zach and the number 10 made no mistake with the finish. 1-1 and game on.

Almost 10 minutes later, The Dial conceded a clumsy penalty and found themselves 2-1 down.
A poor free kick which was harmlessly going out of play, was followed by the striker and Keelan Brient at the far post. Keelan caught the player and the ref gave the spot kick. It was despatched well and on balance, it was a deserved lead for Worplesdon.

Things then got even worse at the halfway point of the first half. Skipper Mark Watkins got his marching orders for violent conduct, which left the team with a mountain to climb.
The contest was then put to bed when yet more poor defending allowed a simple tap in for the Worplesdon striker to make it 3-1, right on the stroke of half-time.

The second half saw much more fight from the away outfit. It was a battle, but the team held their own and were wanting to salvage some pride.
It did get very sour with 20 minutes remaining, when Brad Pegg saw red after reacting to an incident off the ball.

It was 9 versus 11 for the remainder of the game, but the players remaining were still giving everything they could and with around 5 minutes left, they actually had the chance to pull a goal back.
The usually prolific finisher Nic, missed a glorious chance to halve the deficit, but his attempt over the keeper, went well wide.
It just summed up the day for The Dial.

#DialSquareReborn