LEAGUE leaders Chard B won 3-0 at home to Taunton CS A in South East 3 of the Davis Wood league.

The visitors were never in the game. They lacked drive and pace and played a ‘hit and hope’ strategy.

Chard dominated the midfield and this allowed the attack to be principally in Taunton’s half for all the first half.

The visitors found any way possible to stop these attacks, resulting in a number of penalty corners.

Chard finally broke through when Andy Swain passed to Nick Parkinson who managed to squeeze the ball home.

Shortly afterwards Parkinson went on a silky run and his shot was deflected to Arthur Critchley who controlled the looping ball and scored with some aplomb from two metres.

Taunton tried to press forward but good defending by Nick Liggins kept the wing advances to a minimum and Callum Bailey in goal stopped the only chances of the half.

Chard reorganised a little in the second period and this allowed Taunton to come back into the game.

However ill discipline from one of their players – who had previously been warned – saw him yellow carded and Chard took control of the game again.

Shortly afterwards Critchely slipped a pin-point pass to Durgan Cooper who scored in the corner despite the shouts from the visitors’ captain.

Taunton reverted to strong tackling and after the player who was yellow carded returned he was quickly sent off again for kicking out at a Chard player.

The home saw out the clock, the final chance falling to debutant Ryan Lewis who narrowly missed in the dying minutes.

Chard have three games left and need to win two of them to be guaranteed champions.

Chard: Bailey, Dare, Mooney, Knight, Eames, Cheffey, Lewis (D), Liggins, Parkinson, Cooper, Critchely, Lewis (R), Swain, Johnson.