Netley Central Sports 3 Andover Lions 1.

Lions’ poor start to the season continued with a disappointing 3-1 defeat to league new boys Netley Central Sports.

Once again they travelled with a depleted squad still ravaged by injuries, work commitments and suspension and Ray Cozze had the bare 11 to start the match.

From the whistle they were on the back foot and within a minute Josh Hind was forced to clear off the line but almost immediately Netley took the lead when Journeaux got behind the Lions’ back four and cut an angled shot across Baxter. Lions settled after this wake-up call and started to pass the ball around well with Jamie Pollard and Ryan Facey both enjoying a lot of possession. On 18 minutes they levelled in spectacular fashion when Nick Dadds won the ball from a quick Sam Baxter goal kick, looked up and lashed the ball past the Netley keeper from all of 30 yards.

It was no more than they deserved and they spent the remainder of the half pushing forward and looking worthy of taking the lead. However nothing more than half chances followed and the first half ended all square.

Lions have been notoriously slow in the second half of games so far this season and this proved no exception with Netley regaining the initiative and dominating.

On the hour mark Vinton regained the lead from eightyards before the game became very scrappy. Netley became camped in Lions’ half but Andover felt aggreived that two strong penalty shouts, one for a push on Darren Paris and the other for handball, both went begging.

Their fate was sealed five minutes from time when Lowe scored a replica of the second goal with a header from a free-kick.

The bad news only got worse after the match when Casson Spencer was found to have fractured a collar bone and will miss four to six weeks while Pollard was the subject of a seven day approach from neighbours Stockbridge who already have eight of last season’s Lions’ squad in their set up.

After the match Chris Paris was disappointed with events. “Once again we had a good first half but couldn’t kill the game off and with just 11 players against a squad of 14 we were just hoping to hang on after the break.

‘There’s no doubt we need some new blood in the ranks now and pretty quickly too with Casson out and Jamie looking like moving on.

‘We haven’t had a single piece of luck so far this season and the two penalty appeals in the second half summed that up especially after the soft one given against us in the 90th minute last week.

‘We’ve no game this week and that’s probably what we need at the moment to get a few players back and hopefully a couple in”