Thanks again to Rory Sheehan who will be providing match reports and feature articles
Weymouth 1 Wrexham 3
Wrexham continued their 100% record in the BSP under Dean Saunders with their 5th consecutive victory coming at the Wessex Stadium. The hosts had been plunged into turmoil with the suspension of manager John Hollins days earlier making it difficult to predict what sort of Weymouth side the Dragon would be facing.
Debuts were given by Saunders to two new inexperienced loan signings in Nathan Woolfe from Bolton and Nathan Fairhurst from Preston. Fairhurst came in for Mackin in the centre and Woolfe filled in on the left of midfield. Carl Tremarco replaced Neil Taylor with Ashley Westwood wearing the captain’s armband.
The game began with Wrexham slowly emerging as the better side. The Terras struggled to contain Wrexham’s forays forward and when Kevin Sandwith fouled Wes Baynes it was the third similar offence in quick succession from a Weymouth player. The referee lost patience and awarded a free-kick in a dangerous position outside of the area.
Nathan Woolfe boldly claimed responsibility for the set-piece just 15 minutes into his Wrexham career and curled a beautiful, accurate, well-struck shot over the wall and into the back of the net. As first impressions go, that will take some beating.
Wrexham didn’t really come close to building on their 1-0 lead as the half progressed but likewise Weymouth offered nothing to suggest they threatened an equaliser. In the meantime there were bookings dished out to both sets of players by a referee who seemed to reach for his cards very easily.
The second-half again say Wrexham fail to assert their dominance over Weymouth as the home side grew in confidence and crept back into the game. This was partly inspired by the introduction of their half-time substitute the diminutive Ryan Williams.
The Terras strike partnership of Stuart Beavon and Chris McPhee came to life and with just over 20 minutes to go Wrexham were forced into a substitution. Ritchie De Laet went off with a groin problem to be replaced by Silvio Spann, Wes Baynes dropping to right-back. The two right-sided players then combined for an effort from Baynes that smacked the Weymouth cross-bar.
At the other end Beavon and McPhee combined to put Gavin Ward at full stretch to tip over McPhee’s diving header. Ward was called into action again shortly after and Mike Williams was required to help clear the danger.
Following an impressive showing on his Wrexham debut, Woolfe was replaced by Christian Smith as Saunders looked to seal the game. Minutes later this was effectively achieved through two Wrexham goals within a minute.
Firstly Jefferson Louis won a tussle with the Terras strong centre-half Santos Gaias to go through on goal and impressively lob over goalkeeper Danny Knowles. With Weymouth still shell-shocked a long-ball down the centre was latched onto by Marc Williams who was left with only Knowles to beat. Despite a touch from the goalkeeper he couldn’t keep out the shot which made it 3-0.
Shaun Whalley then replaced Fairhurst to use up some time, but Weymouth came back with a last-minute consolation, an impressive long-range strike from Beavon beating Ward to give the scoreline a fairer reflection.
Wrexham were lucky at times but with 5 wins out of 5 under Saunders in the BSP, few care as such form cannot be argued with. Its Wrexham’s best-ever ‘league’ start under a new manager and a better start under Saunders than any Wrexham fan could have expected.
The only frustration is that with so many postponements for various reasons, and a back-log of fixtures, we will be playing catch-up for a while which might not favour our promotion bid in the long-term.
For as long as we keep winning though, few will be concerned…
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