We were a bit fortunate today to come away with a point. We were on the back foot for most of the first half and Merstham deservedly took the lead after about 20mins, even though the header was preventable.  Things got worse 10 minutes later when Tom Jelley got sent off for a second yellow.  I thought that they were both yellow card offences at the time. Luckily for us Merstham seemed to want to sit back on their lead, although we didn't seem able to cause them many problems either.  As the 2nd half wore on we gradually started to play a bit more football in their half.  Craig made a couple of attacking substitutions and we began to make sporadic forays into their box, although we needed a great save by Smith and a clearance off the line by Cheadle to keep us in it.  Then on 84 minutes Knock played a nice 1-2 on the edge of the box and managed to get a shot away.  The keeper only managed to palm his effort into the air where Watkins was on hand to head in from close range.  I expected Merstham to come at us for the last 5 minutes, but it was Watkins who came closest to nabbing a winner in the dying seconds.

Overall, it was a sluggish performance by us, and we hardly had any good possesion in their half.  But we stayed patient with 10 men and took a few risks later on and it paid off.