Right from the kick off, Paulton were energetic & organised, moving the ball around quickly and not letting Sholing have any time on the ball. Rovers had the first chance on 9 mins as the Boatmen sat off and allowed a shot from the edge of the area that Gosney had to palm out, with the rebound put over a gaping goal. It was the same on 12 mins, too much space in the Boatmen final third and Gos had to make a save.

It was no suprise at all when Paulton took a deserved lead on 21 mins, a mistake at the back allowed Will Harvey to advance and score from the right side of the area. Rovers should have quickly had a second, a pass found their player in acres of space, but he rushed his shot and put it wide.

Took until 25 mins for Sholing to have their first meaningful attack, Conor Whiteley getting to the byline to cross into the 6 yard box where Dan Mason flicked it with his heel, but the keeper dropped to his right to save. Apart from D-Dan shooting over, there was nothing else from the Boatmen going forward apart from some aimless hoofs, as Paulton created several more chances and also hit the base of the post with a freekick. HT 0-1

Normally, Sholing put a bad first half behind them and come out fired up to put it right, but nope, not today, a minute into the second half, Ed Butcher had space and time to fire across Gosney and in off the far post. There was no response from the Boatmen, it was painful to watch as we could barely string two passes together and the frustrations about the performance manifested into petulant clashes with the ref and Paulton players.

Only when Brad Targett came on with 20 mins to go, did we look something like a threat in the final third, but still we weren't able to create a serious effort on target. Was one of those game where you just want the final whistle to blow to put you out your misery.

All credit to Paulton Rovers, they played well, lots of energy & movement, knocked it about at pace and all the team were communicating and working for each other. Exactly what Sholing weren't doing. Harvey & Ibrahim were the stand out players for Paulton, but the whole team got the reward for the effort they put in.

We can only hope this is a blip, not a rut, but in all honesty, we may have lost some games narrowly recently and been unlucky in others, but the level of performances have not been up to the standards we set at the start of the season. Today's will hopefully not be repeated and the management and players can use this 2 week break to reset, get back to basics and to preparing & playing how we know we can. FT 0-2