Match Report

After ten and a half months out of the game with a serious knee injury, Tommy Wright rounded off a good week when he came off the substitutes’ bench with eleven minutes to go at Meadow Park and struck within three minutes to move Sutton’s start to the season from a ‘satisfactory’ category to ‘good’. On Tuesday he had ended his long absence from league action in front of friends and family at his local ground, and now, with U’s having had the better of their Hertfordshire opponents, he again underlined the importance of hitting the target with shots, as a mistake by goalkeeper David Gregory allowed the ball to slither underneath him in to the net and gave Sutton the win they deserved.

Although Wright’s return on Tuesday had been a positive for U’s, as had the battling defensive performance late on which earned them a point, there was a fair amount of damage afterwards with Aaron Jarvis, Harry Beautyman and Will Randall all ruled out from facing Boreham Wood, Beautyman having played over a half on Tuesday with a broken bone in his foot and Randall waiting for a scan to determine the extent of his ankle ligament injury, but Craig Eastmond and Kenny Davis were fit to return in midfield and at no time in the game could Boreham Wood be said to have been on top.

Also back in the starting line-up was David Ajiboye, and within ten minutes home skipper Tom Champion was in the book for a body-check on the winger whose pace was a threat all afternoon. There were also moments in the first half where it was possible to see the threat at the other end of Kabongo Tsimanga, who had already scored three times this season but who by the end was an anonymous figure such was the excellence of the Sutton defence. However there was little in the game, either between the sides or in terms of clear chances, with Jamie Butler saving from Tyrone Marsh, and at the other end Eastmond, who paid for Champion’s booking when he was also shown the yellow card for a similar offence albeit in a less threatening position, miscuing a shot after Jamie Collins and Omar Bugiel had set up the chance following a free kick, and also seeing two headers from Rob Milsom corners cleared.

The second half followed a similar pattern but with U’s noticeably gaining the upper hand as the game went on. Boreham Wood had one clear chance, when Kieron Murtagh met Adam McDonnell’s corner with a glancing header which went wide, and Butler had to come off his line quickly to block a Marsh shot, but more chances came at the other end. Bugiel looped a header just wide, Tom Bolarinwa saw a deflected shot trickle past the post and, in the best bit of football of the afternoon, Milsom came forward from left back, found Ajiboye on the left and continued his run to meet the low return cross with a crisp first time shot which was well saved by Gregory.

Eastmond’s first appearance of the season lasted until just after the hour, when he was replaced by Craig Dundas, and no sooner had Wright replaced Bugiel than the substitutes combined decisively. Dundas outjumped Mark Ricketts, who had also only just joined the game, to flick on a Davis pass and Wright reacted quicker than Champion to race clear of the defender and hit a shot that went straight through the diving Gregory and in to the net, his first goal since the equaliser at Havant exactly eleven months ago and greeted joyously by the player, team-mates and supporters alike.

Boreham Wood: D Gregory, K Smith, F Ilesanmi, T Champion, D Stephens, D Woodards(sub S Thomas 81), P Mingoia, A McDonnell, K Tshimanga, K Murtagh(sub M Ricketts 81), T Marsh(sub J Shaibu 59). Subs n/u R Shakes, J Thompson. Booked: Champion, Stephens.

Referee: Savvas Yianni