THERE was little new year cheer for Jersey Bulls, as a “sloppy” display in front of their home faithful saw visiting Alton snatch all three points.
“Overran” in the first 45 minutes, according to manager Gary Freeman, the hosts trudged in at the interval 1-0 down.
Scott Sanderson proved the beneficiary of some slick visiting interplay between the front three, latching on to Jamie Hoppitt’s well-judged through ball to poke home after eight minutes.
Bulls’ leading goalscorer, Lorne Bickley, restored parity just before the hour mark – with a goal entirely of his own making.
The prolific forward charged down a clearance, before he brought the ball expertly under his spell to then coolly stroke past Lewis Mees in the visiting net.
Just as the hosts began to build up a head of steam, the Hampshire side struck back after 73 minutes to stun a subdued Springfield crowd.
A long throw grazed a leaping Luke Campbell’s head before falling kindly to a grateful Jamie Phillips, who headed home from a few yards out.
With fellow Premier Division South promotion hopefuls Knaphill slipping 1-0 away to Spelthorne Sports, Jersey were unable to seize upon the opportunity to close the gap on the third-placed side to just three points.
Meanwhile, Abbey Rangers’ comfortable 3-0 victory sees them move three points clear of the Islanders, but having played two games more.
“We weren’t at the races,” said captain James Querée, right.
“Credit to Alton, they were first to every ball and seemed to latch onto every second ball too.
“We were probably sloppy throughout the whole 90 minutes. They seemed to want it more than us and that earned them the three points.
“They were a good outfit and asked a lot of questions, but we can only look at ourselves really and we know it wasn’t good enough.
“It’s important that we look back and reflect on how to improve. It’s a very long season and we are a tight-knit group.
“So it’s a good opportunity for us now to prove how close we are as a squad and bounce back straight away.”
Querée has been required to fulfil multiple roles across the back line this campaign, with key injuries and absentees, including Jay Giles and Sammy Sutcliffe.
Meanwhile, the engine room in midfield has also been stretched thin.
Kamen Nafkha was unavailable for the contest, while Adam Trotter and Jack Boyle remain sidelined through injury. To add insult to injury, familiar number one Euan van der Vliet also remains out.
The Bulls squad is currently down to its bare bones, but their captain was in no mood to blame those woes for his side’s display. He added: “We’ve never shied away from the fact we cannot dip into a mass pool of players to add depth to cover injuries.
“But there is real quality here in Jersey. The players today and the players we have out injured are more than capable to compete at this level.
“It doesn’t really matter who we had out there against Alton. If you don’t do the basics well enough, teams will punish you and they did exactly that.
“There are some great sides in this league. We have to earn the right to play and we didn’t do that today.”
Defeat marked just the second defeat in 18 in all competitions for Freeman’s men, after a strong finish to the first half of the campaign.
Hopes were high that the Islanders could hit the ground running in their first fixture of the calendar year in a game that kicked off the beginning of a four-match home run.
Echoing his captain’s sentiments, Freeman was also frustrated at the work rate through the opening half.
He said: “They started very strong and pegged us back. I don’t think we matched their work rate early on and they punished us. When I entered the dressing room at half-time, all the lads were saying the same thing. We knew we had to work harder and match their tempo to get anything from the game.
“There was a great response in the second half, but maybe we gave ourselves a little too much to do.
“Lorne got the goal to get us level, but after that, the game got a little bit scrappy.
“Teams in this league are very good at breaking the game up and stopping any momentum and they did that really well after we got our goal and then nicked one of their own.
“Obviously, we are all disappointed. We wanted to get a win to start the new year strong in front of our home fans.
“But there is no time to dwell on the loss. We have a big FA Vase match against Hamworthy Recreation on Saturday, which provides us a great chance to bounce back and give the home fans something to cheer about.”
