FAC4Q: Torquay United v Hampton & Richmond 3pm 15th Oct 2022

Thought Donnellan and McGavin looked poor at York. Both give the appearance of running into a headwind through treacle.

stop being grumpy pew lol

Oh dear.

We may need to turn to the fire power on the bench.

Oh dear again.

This is truly dreadful. 3 outfield players on the bench, no striking options at all. H&R should be 2 up. This club is dying before our eyes.

So ok we got a draw in the end but it was another desperate performance from the Gulls. At 2-0 down, we looked down and out as chants of "we are f'ing shit" were ringing from the Pop side and quite rightly so. Then out of the blue McGavin, who was having his usual frustrating game, hits a worldly from about 25 yards out into the top corner. Game on, again. The real hero for me today was loan player De Silva who replaced the injured Wyatt at half-time. De Silva played left midfield and at last Torquay had a player with skill and pace who worried the opposition and got behind them. It was De Silva's telling cross that Donnellan headed in for our equaliser. De Silva near the end had a chance of glory near the end but blasted the ball over. In truth H & R had a glorious chance in added time to score but first Halstead saved then our other impressive young loanee Okoli brilliantly blocked the follow up. So it could have easily ended up in tears for the Gulls.

H & R took the lead in the first half with their first meaningful attack. There was some last ditch defending going on in the box and Moxey was adjudged to have handled one such block. Halstead brilliantly parried the penalty; H & R were quicker to react and slotted in the rebound. That rather summed up Torquay's ponderous performance in not being alert enough. Torquay's build up play lacked pace, there were some good link up play at times but in truth we rarely troubled their keeper. Wyatt, who looked one of our liveliest players unleashed a spectacular long-range effort that their keeper tipped on to the cross bar. It was a rare moment of excitement for the Gulls. Torquay had lots of corners in the first half but made little use of them. Then Torquay like in previous games totally wasted a free-kick in a dangerous area just outside the box with some short passing that missed the target man. In contrast, H & R attacked with more purpose and quickly got the ball into dangerous areas.

In truth, Torquay got out of jail today by drawing today and for the majority of the game we looked desperate and bereft of ideas. We need more players like De Silva who have a bit of pace and skill who can stretch defences. Our strikers Goodwin and Jarvis were both anonymous today. I thought Goodwin was particularly poor today as not much came off for him today when he did get the ball. Donnellan looked better when he did switch to midfield today when Omar replaced Lapsie and headed firmly for our equaliser. Lapsie and Hall both struggled and looked off the pace. McGavin scored a worldly today like he did against us last season for KIngs Lynn but apart from the odd decent pass is too slow to keep up with any sort of tempo.

So there lies the problem, we are too ponderous and lack real tempo and skill to get behind defences. If we get in another winger like De Silva we might start improving but we cannot simply rely on loan youngsters from clubs higher up the ladder to bail us out. As I said, it is all prestty desperate and today's draw felt more like a stay of execution. I do not have much confidence in the replay.