Sittingbourne 1 Rams 1

Tonight the Rams hit the road for the first ‘away’ fixture of the League campaign, and also the first ‘Kent-derby’, with a trip up the M2 to Sittingbourne.

The ‘Brickies’ also had 3pts out of 3 after beating Eastbourne Town 1-0 on Saturday and, having done the double over the Rams in September last season, a lively encounter was inevitable.

It was the home side who scored first when, after they had broken through down the left flank in the 19th minute, centre forward Ryan Golding just beat Daren Hawkes to the ball inside the area, and the striker managed to flick it over the advancing ‘keeper and into the net. The Rams equalised, in a fairly even half, 10 minutes before the interval, when Simon Pettit slipped the ball from the middle to Luke Wheatley on the left some 10 yards in his own half, and the defender proceeded on a mazy run up the wing, between two defenders and battling past a third, to fire into the goal from the edge of the area.

The Rams looked slightly more likely to score in the 2nd half, although both teams hit the woodwork, and the Rams had to defend a number of direct freekicks from the edge of the area (but the wall did it’s job on each occasion). Mitchell Sherwood had to be subbed after a late challenge from left back Dan Palfrey resulted in the midfielder on the deck in agony for a number of minutes,. Otherwise there were no significant incidents, and on balance a share of the points was probably the fairest result, with both teams looking forward to the Bank Holiday weekend unbeaten.

Rams: Daren Hawkes, Gareth Cornhill, Luke Wheatley, Ollie Gray, Liam Quinn (c), Ben Laslett, Mitchell Sherwood (Pascal Ebigbo), Warren Schulz, Mark Lovell (Steve O’Brien), Joseph Afusi (Joe Taylor), Simon Pettit. Unused Subs: Ryan Harker, Brett Mills.