DORCHESTER 1

Blair 44

YEOVIL TOWN 1

Trialist 53

SHANE Murphy pulled off some outstanding saves as Dorchester held Yeovil Town to a 1-1 draw in their pre-season friendly at the Clayson Stadium.

Tom Blair slotted in past the Yeovil trialist in goal, before a different trialist levelled from the spot in the second half.

Dorchester’s side in the first half contained the likes of Dan Strugnell, Tom Bath and Tiago Sa, while Yeovil’s team in the first 45 minutes was composed mainly of trialists and youngsters, barring captain Ryan Seager

Initially this was very evident, as Dorchester dominated the first 10 minutes.

Blair caused gasps from the crowd when he drifted through the Yeovil midfield and charged at the defence inside the first minute.

Yet despite rarely having the ball go back into their half, Dorchester were unable to craft real chances from this dominance.

Bath’s shot in the eighth minute was the only real chance during this time, and was saved by the trialist in the Yeovil goal.

The Glovers were able to grow into the match, and should have taken the lead in the 12th minute.

The ball was moved promisingly close to the penalty spot, where a trialist lashed a shot towards goal but was denied by Dorchester goalkeeper Murphy.

Seager tried to follow up with a similar shot, but Murphy had recovered fantastically fast to make the second save.

Yeovil were thoroughly examining the Dorchester defence at this point, but were unable to really threaten the goal, asides from two shots that were well over the bar.

Bath was impressing in his first start in a Dorchester shirt.

He almost had a goal when another pass was slipped in towards Blair who made another superb run, before crossing in.

Bath went for an overhead kick but the Yeovil defender did enough to put him off and see it over the bar.

Seager was the next to threaten and he should have scored.

The ball was cut back to him by Nestor Shako but he fired narrowly wide as the teams remained deadlocked.

An acrobatic effort from Bath then went wide when under considerable pressure from the Yeovil defence.

What had petered out burst into life late on, when Seager had another shot, which looked to have hit an arm but the Glovers’ appeals were waved away.

Yet Dorchester countered ruthlessly, with Blair latching onto a ball over the top from Murphy, getting past the trialist in goal, before slotting in to hand the Magpies the lead.

This proved the last meaningful act of the half as the Magpies went in at the break a goal up.

With a lot of changes the Glovers did not take long to haul themselves back into the match.

A foul by Blair on a trialist in the 52nd minute handed the visitors a penalty, and a trialist subsequently sent Murphy the wrong way.

Craig Alcock was the next to bring out a superb save from Murphy, hitting a rising effort powerfully which Murphy had to be quick to deny.

Kyle Egan was the next to save Dorchester’s blushes, with Yeovil improved in the second half.

A deflected shot caused Murphy to dive, but the ball to loop over him, but Egan was well-placed to brilliantly clear off the line.

The Magpies threatened to burst into life late on, when new signing Eder Batista beat the goalkeeper, who was off his line, to the ball and crossed in but the Yeovil defence cleared away from an onrushing Sam Lanahan.

Yet the deadlock would remain until full-time, with the pace of the game killed late on by a raft of substitutions.

After the match, Dorchester boss Callum Brooks told Echosport: “We had our objectives away from the result to be honest.

“We trained twice this week with a real focus on our defensive shape and discipline when we have not got the ball and we wanted to see a real togetherness as well, and we saw that in abundance really and we had to still maintain a threat and still do our thing when we got on the ball.”

“I have put a new group together to an extent and brought in nine or 10 players, so last year’s group towards the end for 10 games we pretty much executed the game plans as detailed but we are kind of starting that again.

So what I wanted to see from my group was an unbelievable discipline to be resilient and execute a game plan and they did that against Yeovil.

Dorchester travel to Portland United on Tuesday (7.45pm).

Magpies: Murphy, Egan (Morris 89), Sa, Strugnell (Martin 62), Winsper (Lanahan 71), Panesar-Dower (Brookes 84), B Lowes (Josh Williams 87), Bath (Batista 73), Davis (Wright 64), Blair (O Lowes 79), Rose. Subs not used: Nixon, Trialist, Trialist

Yeovil (first half): Trialist, Calvery, Trialist, Fleming, Ojo, John, Sakho, Trialist, Trialist, Trialist, Seager.

Yeovil (second half): Trialist, Skendi, Collins, Bradbury, Alcock, Rogers, Worthington, Murphy, Trialist (Waugh 79), Trialist, Trialist.

Attendance: 849