Tadley bounce back from Raynes Park Vale defeat

Tadley Calleva dropped one place to eighth in the Combined Counties Premier Division South table following a 3-0 defeat at Raynes Park Vale on Saturday.

The Tadders were unable to recover after conceding three first half goals as the impressive Raynes Park maintained their 100 per cent start to the season, winning five from five.

Tadley bounced back with a 3-1 win at home to Burnham in the first round of the Combined Counties Challenge Cup on Tuesday night, in front of a crowd of 107.

The sides went in level at 1-1 at half time after Ben Wright's 19th minute strike was cancelled out before second half goals from Brett Denham and then Jordan Goater ensured it was the hosts who progressed to the second round.

Joint manager Ben Dillon said: “The weekend was very, very tough for us, we had a few missing.

“Raynes Park are a really good side, we started slow and Raynes Park started fast.

“All credit to them, they deserved the win.

“What I will say is there’s positives in there for us, we conceded goals from individual errors that we haven’t been making.

“Apart from that, we didn’t give away too many chances, we defended well.

“We had a couple of chances, Kalum Cousins had one from the edge of the box, Brad Neal hit the bar from a corner.

“We regrouped, and we matched them second half, it was a tale of two halves, we were much livelier, much more switched on.

“It’s a learning curve for us, it’s still so early on in the season, we’re going to lose games, everyone’s going to lose games I’m sure.

“It’s another lesson for us, disappointing to lose don’t get me wrong but if we’re going to lose, I don’t mind losing to them, they’re very good.

“We’ll get there, we’ll take the positives and onto the next one.”

Tadley are back in league action this Saturday ahead of the visit of Abbey Rangers (3pm kick off), who sit one place below Dillon’s side in ninth.