Frustration for Barnes at opportunity missed

James Seager’s penalty stroke earned the hosts a 1-1 draw with their Devon rivals in the National League conference west encounter.

However, Barnes reckons his troops – who remained second-from-bottom in the table – had plenty of chances to take all three points and leapfrog their visitors.

The Fareham performance director said: ‘It was a frustrating day when you look at the result as we did more than enough to win the game.

‘We suffered from not taking the chances we created.

‘Penalty corners were strong in training but were misfiring.

‘Games are often decided by small margins – and it was a few centimetres on Sunday.

‘The umpire judged the last penalty corner to have not travelled out of the circle before James fired it in.

‘We have to move on, though, and turn the dominance, chances and penalty corners in to goals.

‘Isca were hanging on in the last five minutes and I am very proud in how we threw everything at them to try to win.

‘It was not quite enough but the energy we showed is encouraging as we look to maintain our National League status.’

Fareham made a bright start to the game but fired their first two chances off target.

Then against the run of play, Isca opening the scoring with their first attack.

After winning possession in their own D on five minutes, they broke at speed before Tim Nurse slotted the ball past Fareham keeper George Harris.

The hosts came back at their visitors but could not find a way through before the break.

In the second half, chances were few and far between but Fareham did haul themselves level after a number of penalty corners.

With 10 minutes left, Seager’s short corner effort hit a defender on the shoulder – and he glady stepped up to tuck away the resulting flick.

Seager then netted from another penalty corner on 68 minutes only for the umpire to cut the celebrations short.

Fareham’s premier ladies’ side came within 10 seconds of shocking South Club’s Women’s League division 3B leaders East Grinstead on Saturday.

After falling behind early on, Vicky Field and Laura Farrell came close to levelling before Jo Faulkner flicked home a penalty corner.

Hannah Oldham then game them the lead – pouncing on a rebound from another Faulkner strike.

India international keeper Swati then saved a penalty strike after Sian Edwards blocked a shot on the line.

But East Grinstead snatched a point with the final shot of the game.

Coach Steve Lemon said: ‘I’m absolutely gutted.

‘We worked so hard only to have victory snatched away.’