The Under 12 Sidmouth Warriors let a three goal lead slip to lose 5-4 in a nine goal thriller in their first league match of the season against local rivals West Hill Wasps, writes Simon Jones.

The first half started quickly with West Hill taking the lead after 5 minutes. The Warriors then went all out on attack and when Kade Hayman scored direct from a great corner to equalise, for the next 25 minutes it was one way traffic. The Warriors kept forcing corners and scored three more from them. The first a Silk corner was forced home by Hayman, the second some bravery in the box from Tremlett enabled Gosse to fire home from the edge of the box and the third saw Cooke head home.

The Warriors should have then closed the game out but allowed West Hill back in with 2 breakaway goals just before half time. Alex Thomas then had a great chance, he created for himself, to give the Warriors the imputus back but his placed shot was well saved by West Hills keeper making the half time score 4-3 to the Warriors.

For half an hour of the second half the Warriors were really quiet and kept giving the ball away and if it wasn’t for some brave defending from Mead and Woodruff,

West Hill would have equalised a lot earlier than the 60th minute. Some fine saves by Perez also kept West Hill out until 10 minutes from time when West Hill scored their fifth. The Warriors then came alive for the last 10 minutes and threw everything at West Hill to try and find the equaliser.

Tremlett hit the post, Lowe fired over and Haymans header was cleared off the line. Try as they might the equaliser wouldn’t come and the final whistle blew on an opening day 5-4 defeat.

The team now need to take the positives out of this game for their next league game in two weeks time.

Team; Leon Sinker, Ollie Perez, Toby De Grouchy, Kade Hayman, Matt Jones, Tom Woodruff, Ethan Mead, Joe Lowe , Jack Silk, Luke Tremlett, Ben Gosse, Elliot Perez, Tom Cooke, Alex Thomas and Joe Buckland.