Ottery St Mary suffered their first defeat of the season when edged out 1-0 by hosts Woodbury in what was a closely contested Football Express Cup tie.

Woodbury began brightly and controlled both ball and territory, but without ever getting to close to the Otters goal thanks to the well-organised Ottery back line.

The nearest the game came to seeing a goal was when a Woodbury player headed the ball against his own crossbar when seeking to clear an Ottery corner!

In another Ottery raid the Woodbury goalkeeper produced a superb double save to first keep out a powerful shot from Adam Harris and then to keep out the follow-up effort by Jordan Rogers.

Two evenly-matched sides went toe-to-toe for 35 minutes until a goalkeeping clearance up field fell kindly to a Woodbury player and he netted what proved to be the only goal of the game.

After the break the Otters took the game to the home side. Dale Strawbridge had a great chance to level when he found himself in the area to the right of the goal, but his shot nestled in the side netting.

Connor Swingler the rifled a shot from 22-yards that skimmed the upright and Harris unleashed a thunderous shot from just outside the area that cannoned back off the crossbar.

Ottery boss Mike Dawe said: “Fair play to the lads, they threw everything they had at Woodbury in a bid to get back on level terms. On any other day I feel sure we’d have won this sort of a game, but nothing went our way.”

On Saturday the Otters are again in cup action, this time entertaining Honiton Town reserves in a Devon Intermediate Cup tie that kicks-off at 2pm at Washbrook Meadow.