Dandy Town 2

Devonshire Cougars 0

The influence that Damon Ming is likely to have on Dandy Town's season cannot be underestimated.

Since his return, the Hornets have won two of their last four games, against Boulevard Blazers and Devonshire Cougars, secured a draw against North Village, and lost just once, against Southampton Rangers, a game they should have won.

Back after an absence of several years, Ming was at his terrorising best against Cougars in this Premier Dudley Eve Cup clash on Wednesday night at Somerset Cricket Club, scoring his side's first goal, and pulling the league leaders apart at will.

The 2-0 defeat was Cougars' first of the season, and by their own high standards they had a poor night against opponents they had already beaten twice this year.

Outplayed for the majority of the 90 minutes, they failed to muster a serious effort on goal in the first half, and until substitute Ryan Swan drew an instinctive one-handed save from Town's Mikkail Crockwell late on, never really threatened,

In contrast, Hornets laid siege to the Cougars goal for most of the night, and had David Signor made more of two chances that came his way before half-time, the game could well have been decided much sooner.

As it was, Ming eventually broke the deadlock in the 65th minute when a scramble in the box saw him fire home from five yards. Town continued to dominate proceedings and nearly doubled their lead moments later when Heys Wolfe's diving header went just wide.

Wolfe did eventually get the goal that his side's dominance deserved, rifling in a shot from the edge of the box in the dying seconds.

In Wednesday's First Division Dudley Eve match, St George's Colts made no mistake even if they did wait until four minutes from time to score.

A Detroy Smith header was enough to help the East End side beat Somerset Trojans and gain revenge for their league defeat on October 5.

Much like Dandy Town, the Colts dominated for long periods of the match and can feel somewhat aggrieved that they were made to wait as long as they did to break the deadlock.

They had two good shouts for a penalty turned down, the strongest of which saw skipper Allen Douglas hauled down in the box after he had beaten Timmy Figuerido in the air and sent his header towards an empty net. Once Douglas had fallen, Somerset cleared the ball just as it appeared destined to cross the line.

Moments later Douglas actually managed to get the ball into the goal only to have his effort disallowed for offside. It seemed as if it might be one of those nights for Colts, but just as penalties beckoned, Smith out jumped a static Trojans defence to score for the second successive game.