Sidmouth Town went down to a single goal defeat in their home meeting with Alphington.

Town made a flying start and should have held a two-goal lead inside 15 minutes. However, both Shaun Densham and Connor Swingler spurned excellent opportunities to fire their side into the lead.

The contest was a scrappy one with both side’s clearly lacking a cool head in the final third.

Both defences were resilient, with Pete Eveleigh being solid for the Alphas.

Sidmouth were the better team in the first half, but needed to get their passing and high pressing game going, as all too often they were hitting long balls and not retaining the ball well enough and this played right into the hands of the visitors.

The second half was a mirror image of the first, with precious little quality on show across the pitch!

Town seemed to resort to a long-ball game, much to the frustration of the home management whilst the tactic also played into the hands of the Alphas back line and the outstanding Eveleigh.

In the last 20 minutes the game opened up with Alphington keeper Jack Mcandrews being forced into a terrific save to deny Densham when he struck a shot on the turn inside the 18-yard box that looked destined for the net before the glovesman, at full stretch, palmed the ball around the post.

With 10 minutes to go Alphington finally got a shot on the Town goal – and scored!

Aaron Land provided a through ball to Josh Hole who riffled it past Steve Jones in the Vikings goal.

In the final stages McAndrew’s was at it again producing two terrific late stops to keep out Jamie Newbery and Densham.

Teenage central defender Jamie Newbery was the stand-out player for Town.