Gosport Borough suffer defeat at hands on Hendon

Gosport enjoyed a good start at Silver Jubilee Park.

George Barker and Chris Flood combined well to create an opening, but the visitors failed to make the most of their impressive build-up play.

On 22 minutes, though, Lee Molyneaux’s side breathed a sigh of relief when the home side created space to fire goalwards.

Yet keeper Patrick O’Flaherty was equal to the effort and brilliantly kept the score level.

With both sides cancelling each other out, efforts in front of goal were proving hard to come by.

And with Rory Williams’ shot just after the half-hour mark going wide of the post, both sides went into the break unable to break the deadlock.

Five minutes after the restart, Marley Ridge had a fine strike go narrowly wide as the visitors looked to up the tempo.

Yet those efforts received a telling blow when the home side took the lead on 54 minutes.

A great strike from Shaun Lucien had the beating of O’Flaherty, giving Hendon the advantage.

Gosport’s response was to ring the changes, with Toby Adekunle, Matt Paterson and Alex John replacing Barker, Ridge and Mike Carter.

But the triple substitution failed to have the desired impact as Hendon doubled their advantage on 75 minutes through Joe White.

Borough pulled a goal back on 86 minutes through Paterson.

He did well to create space for himself and fire home – but it wasn’t enough as Gosport’s winless run was stretched to three games.