ELBURTON VILLA 3, PENZANCE 0

Elburton Villa avenged their only Peninsula defeat of the season, a 2-3 reverse at Penlee Park back in August, and in so doing ended Penzance’s own long unbeaten league run that dated back to the same month writes James Wright.

Welcoming back former Southern League defender Ben Palmer, starting at left-back after spells with Helston Athletic and St Buryan, the Magpies made an excellent start, monopolising possession and pinning back Villa. But everything went belly-up in the sixth minute when Elburton’s first attack – a purposeful burst into the box by Sam Hughes – was curtailed by a Mark Vercesi challenge. The intervention was deemed a professional foul with the Player-Manager shown a straight red card. Chagrin was compounded by home captain Jordan Rundle competently stroking home the penalty.

An enforced reshuffle saw Palmer slide across in to the banished boss’s central defensive berth with Silas Sullivan dropping to left-back. It was the Vice Captain though who came closest to restoring parity, pushing forward to connect cleanly with a Charlie Willis free-kick only to see home keeper James Dudley brilliantly tip the ball on to the bar.

Any hope the chance might trigger a Magpies resurgence was quickly killed when Villa made it two moments later, Callum Merrin pouncing on a mistake to hare through and slot the ball low past Harry Salmon. Penzance were poleaxed and only made it to half-time without further damage thanks to some excellent glovework by their young keeper, his best save coming from an Adam McPherson header.

Penzance introduced George Molcher, returning after missing three games due to a nasty foot injury, in place of Ollie Butler at the break. But their hopes of getting back into the contest where extinguished just two minutes after the restart when excellent work down the right by Connor Rush gifted McPherson a regulation tap-in. The visitors huffed and puffed for the remainder of the match. Molcher had a powerful drive charged down and Tyler Tonkin and Sullivan were both off target with free-kicks as the visitors failed to make further inroads.

“We started the game off fantastically,” reflected Vercesi. “At the start I don’t think they knew what was happening really. We played some fantastic football, but the first time they attacked I got caught the wrong side of my guy and ended up competing to try to get back into position and he went down for a penalty. A straight red – it made a massive impact. We then had ten men against eleven very good players.”

Elburton: James Dudley, Sam Leary, Jack Lee, Jordan Rundle, Mike Lucas, Henry Wilson, Steve Colwell, Connor Rush, Sam Hughes, Callum Merrin, Adam McPherson.

Subs: Ollie Newton, Reece Brown, Blake Bolton, Charlie Patrick, River Allen

Penzance: Harry Salmon, Archie Reynolds, Josh Turner (Jacob Trudgeon 51), Ben Palmer (Hayden Waters 78), Mark Vercesi, Tyler Tonkin (captain), Ewan Trevains (Wade Brown 52), Ollie Butler (George Molcher 46), Charlie Willis, Charlie Young, Silas Sullivan.

Unused sub: Sam Young

Referee: Thomas Anstice-Mitchell

Assistants: Stephen Pearce, Robbie Aitken

Cover photo courtesy of Simona who is one of our WhatsApp Supporters Group members.