PSF: Torquay United v Exeter City 3pm 23rd July

A good 90 minutes of football as we build up towards the start of the season which started to turn feisty in the second half with a couple of incidents.

We actually started as the better team for the first quarter of the match and had a good chance early on when Goodwin was able to put Hanson clear on the left of the area but he seemed a little hesitant and his shot was eventually hit well over with just the keeper to beat. On a couple of occasions we carved out opportunities but the final pass was poor and so were unable to capitalise. As we headed into the second quarter of the game Exeter started to get their act together and Halsted was called upon to make some good saves, one with his legs at the near post and another saw him push the ball onto the bar, both from close range headers to keep the scores level at the break.

The second half saw Trialist A, aka Ben Wyatt come on for Donnellan allowing Evans to go into an advanced midfield role where we looked a lot more comfortable. Ben had a good debut showing some intelligent passing and getting stuck in where necessary and doing his job both in attack and defence well. The match was delayed midway through the half for a few minutes with the referee speaking to a number of both Torquay and Exeter players with Moxey walking to the touchline to update Johnson and Downes on the situation and eventually the referee came to speak to both managers. Not sure what was done or said but Matt Taylor came to speak to Andrews possibly about this when he was eventually substituted.

Halstead again continued to make some good saves or Exeter were unable to finish cleanly from some good crosses coming in to the box. The game came to life in the last 10 minutes when Evans was taken down from behind just outside the corner of the penalty area. As he got ready to take the freekick Sparks went down in the box and I think Hanson was given a yellow card and heard someone say it was the elbow in the face but I and many others did not see it.

When Evans did deliver the ball in, it was headed up into the air and ricocheted around before finding McGavin who was able to volley home to the delight of both the players and the home crowd which saw the first goal from the yellows this week after 260 minutes of football. McGavin again had another good match particularly in the second half of the game. Managed to see the rest of the game out fairly comfortably with somehow only three minutes of injury time being added.