SHEPTON MALLET 3

Pollard 15, Gould 28, 44

BRIDPORT 0

BRIDPORT boss Adam Fricker admitted he doesn’t think it could have got much worse for the Bees than their first-half performance, as his side slipped to a 3-0 defeat at Shepton Mallet in the Toolstation Western Premier Division.

All three goals, one from Tyson Pollard and a double from Kailan Gould, came inside the first 40 minutes, ensuring the Bees got their year off to a bad start.

Fricker admitted that his side very much missed the players currently injured for the Bees, highlighting Kameron Andrews and Leighton Thomas’ absences in particular.

Shepton scored early on, after they won a midfield battle which allowed them to surge forward and tuck a scruffy shot into the net past Jason Hutchings in the Bridport goal.

The second goal came 13 minutes later.

Gould got down the right-hand side, before cutting in and curling a wonderful left-foot shot into the top corner.

Bridport began to improve and started to threaten Shepton, but were unable to craft any clear-cut chance from it.

Shortly before half-time, the home side delivered the killer blow, once again through Gould.

Andy Martin tried to shepherd the ball out of play, but was tackled by Gould, who ran forward to fire a shot past Hutchings.

The Bees attempted to respond in the second half, but were unable to craft many clear-cut opportunities.

Sam Clark saw a shot blocked in the second half, which rebounded to substitute Dan Peach, who struck a good shot in prompting a good save from Shepton goalkeeper Tom Easterbrook.

The Bees had a couple of chances from corners but struggled to test Shepton, as they fell to defeat.

Fricker said: “We were poor, to be honest, certainly in the first half, we improved a lot in the second but I don’t think we could have got much worse to be fair.”

When asked what he thought caused the performance, Fricker replied: “I don’t know, we looked very sluggish.

“Don’t get me wrong, the pitch was very heavy and very sticky and we were going up the slope at Shepton in the first half.

“They put us under a lot of pressure from the get go and we could not quite settle ourselves down.”

Bridport host Bitton on Saturday (3pm).

Shepton Mallet: Easterbrook, Bryant, Loxton, Billing, Barter, Morgan, Hill, Morris, Pollard, Allen, Gould

Bees: Hutchings, Sweet, McGrath, Martin, Regan, Symes, Wood (Peach 75), Condliffe (Morris 60), Cox, Salter, Clark. Subs not used: Fricker

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