Maldon & Tiptree 2-3 Great Wakering Rovers

From the Wallace Binder Stadium

Ryman One North

 

GREAT Wakering Rovers came from behind to upset the odds at Maldon & Tiptree and continue their superb start to the season.

Rovers won 3-2 at Maldon, the club who are widely expected to challenge at the top end of the division this year after their link up with League One’s Colchester United.

But it was the away side who took the points, with Jay Nash and a Tom Ranger double proving enough despite falling behind twice.

Maldon started well, Femi Akinwande going close inside the opening exchanges and the same man was denied by Rovers goalkeeper Adam Seal soon after when he should have done better.

But the usually reliable Seal, playing against his former club, was at fault for the first goal as Darren McQueen blasted in from 20 yards, straight through the keeper’s gloves.

He redeemed himself soon after though, with Nnamdi Nwakhuku denied superbly by the away goalkeeper immediately afterwards.

Kieran Monlouis shot over the crossbar but, against the run of play, Rovers levelled the match - Jay Nash, volleying home impressively to score his first of the season.

Three minutes before the break, Akinwande had put the hosts back in front, slotting past Seal, but the second-half belonged to Rovers.

Ranger grabbed his third of the campaign with a neatly placed shot through a crowd, and when the same man did the same thing 10 minutes later, after some dreadful defending, the game had been turned on its head.

Maldon came close late on but couldn’t force an equaliser, leaving Rovers to go on and claim the points.

Great Wakering Rovers: Seal, Pugsley, Kent, Sands, Sparrow, Hepburn, Ranger (Strickland), Johnson (Vaughan), Cleaver (Radley), Nash, Worrell