Torquay United 1 Woking 3
Vanarama National League
29th August 2022

Woking came from behind the grab their first away win of the season against Torquay United at Plainmoor on Bank Holiday Monday.

Despite a positive first half, the Cards fell behind to a Ross Marshall header 20 minutes into the second.

The match turned on its head in the space of six minutes when a James Daly double and a Jack Roles finish secured the points for Woking.

The visitors moved up to 11th in the National League table while the Gulls moved down to 20th.

Darren Sarll made two changes to the side that narrowly lost to Wrexham on Saturday in front of the BT Sport cameras. The suspended Kyran Lofthouse, following his red card, was replaced by goal-scoring substitute Reece Grego-Cox in the starting eleven while Joe McNerney also came into the side for Scott Cuthbert.

The Cardinals started quickly, and Daly, in particular, looked sharp. Within the space of the first five minutes, Woking’s number eight had two attempts on goal.

The first one rattled the outside of the left post from the edge of the box after some good work from Grego-Cox down the left. The second, just a minute later, was an effort from just inside the box on the right-hand-side that had to be parried away by goalkeeper Rhys Lovett.

All the attacking players looked hungry, wanting to test Lovett at every chance they got. Grego-Cox typified this with a curling effort after ten minutes, that Lovett had to get down well to his left to push around the post.

After 22 minutes, after a good bit of play through the middle from Jermaine Anderson, Jim Kellermann found some space inside the box on the right-hand-side, but the number 17 skewed his attempt off-target.

Although the frequency of chances reduced as the half went on, the traffic continued to go in one direction for the remainder of it. With half-an-hour played, an almighty corner scramble almost resulted in the opening goal for Woking before Lovett managed to grab hold of the ball.

Anderson played a clever ball over the top of the Torquay defence to Padraig Amond with a couple of minutes to play in the half, but after beating the goalkeeper to the ball initially, Lovett got back to cut-out Amond’s cross into the danger area.

Dan Moss and Daly were both shown yellow cards late in the half for mis-timed challenges while Kellermann was booked earlier in the half for a minor reaction towards a Torquay player.

Half-time: Torquay United 0 Woking 0

Kellermann was replaced at the break by Roles, as Sarll looked to add and injection of creativity to his Woking attack. However, it was the hosts who started the faster of the two teams in the second period.

Just two minutes into it, Craig Ross was called into action when Corie Andrews was played through on-goal. The goalkeeper made himself big and blocked the attempt well with his body.

It was during this period of play in which Luke Wilkinson picked up a head injury, getting in a great position to head away the rebound to Andrews’ effort.

Wilkinson was replaced by Cuthbert in a like-for-like change in the 50th minute.

The match also became quite scrappy, and this came to a head in the 62nd minute when Will Goodwin, Roles and McNerney were all shown a yellow card following a minor scuffle. Torquay proceeded to go close from the resulting set-piece, but the pressure would finally count just two minutes later.

Following another set-piece situation in the 65th minute, the ball was recycled before finding Ali Omar inside the box on the left-hand-side. The centre-back dug out a cross to his centre-back partner Marshall who headed in at the back post from close range.

Fortunately, the Cards responded well, putting on some pressure of their own.

In the 74th minute, Daly snuck round the back post at a corner to head in the equaliser. Lovett got a hand to it, but the power in the header was enough to beat the goalkeeper.

Within two minutes, the match had completely turned around.

Daly added his second in the 76th minute. Amond latched onto a ball down the right-hand-side before feeding it into Jermaine Anderson. The midfielder composed himself well before getting a shot off, which was parried away by Lovett. As Ince went to retrieve the ball, the 24 quickly moved out of the way of the on-rushing Daly who fired home to double his and Woking’s tally for the day.

As Torquay pushed to get back level, more space began to open up for Woking, which was exploited.

Grego-Cox did brilliantly to nick the ball just past the halfway line with only one or two Torquay players back. He then fed it through to Roles who composed himself before cleverly finishing past Lovett to seal the points with ten minutes to play, sending the travelling support wild with celebrations.

Ricky Korboa, a late substitute for Amond, had a chance in stoppage time at the end of the game in another open, counter-attacking situation, but he couldn’t convert his chance, hitting it straight at Lovett.

Woking’s next match is a trip to Grosvenor Vale to play Wealdstone on Sunday 4th September, 12:00 kick-off.

Torquay United: 22 Rhys Lovett, 2 Dylan Crowe (Martin 81’), 5 Ali Omar, 6 Ross Marshall, 7 Ryan Hanson, 10 Corie Andrews, 14 Brett McGavin, 15 Ben Wyatt (Iseguan 54’), 16 Shaun Donnellan (Hall 85’), 19 Will Goodwin, 21 Dean Moxey

Unused subs: 11 Kieron Evans, 23 Ollie Tomlinson

Goals: Ross Marshall 65’

Woking: 13 Craig Ross, 3 Josh Casey, 5 Joe McNerney, 6 Luke Wilkinson (4 Cuthbert 50’), 8 James Daly, 9 Reece Grego-Cox, 10 Padraig Amond (7 Korboa 90’), 12 Dan Moss, 17 Jim Kellermann (18 Roles 45’), 23 Jermaine Anderson, 24 Rohan Ince

Unused subs: 1 Ethan Wady, 11 Tyreke Johnson

Goals: James Daly 74’, 76’, Jack Roles 80’

Bookings: Jim Kellermann 27’, Dan Moss 40’, James Daly 45’, Jack Roles 62’, Joe McNerney 62’

Referee: James Durkin