CHARD travelled to the highly-rated Royal Marines for their second league match of the season.

With a change of formation, Chard were looking to pack the midfield to stop the Marines from playing after their opening day victory over South Zeal ended 10-1.

The Marines started brightly getting the ball into good wide positions, however with plenty of players behind the ball, Chard were keeping them at bay.

The Marines were on top and the opening goal came after 14 minutes via a penalty kick.

Chard responded really well and started to play some really good football. Darren Contreras making his debut for Chard was beginning to cause real problems.

Cutting in field he linked up well with Wiseman, whose left footed drive deflected out for a corner.

Wiseman swung in the resulting corner which found Cridge in space but he was unable to get anything on the ball to head home.

Chard were playing really well at this stage but just could not open up the defence enough to make a really good goal scoring chance.

The second-half started much like the first with the Marines controlling the game but Chard were battling hard to give themselves a chance, which they had while the score remained at 1-0.

A corner by the Marines was delivered into the box, an unmarked player headed his effort against the bar and then Dowling had his fingers stung with a fine long range effort.

Up the other end Contreras linked up the play well with Vincent and Cole, but Cole was unable to get enough power into his shot to cause the keeper any problems. Dowling again had another drilled effort from distance to deal with, but this time could not hold on, the ball rebound to the striker who rounded Dowling but Grinter got back around to clear off the line.

Chard then had a really good spell of football for ten minutes but with the final ball lacking the Marines broke quickly on 63 minutes to finish off the match.

The winger cut in front the right, beating several players who were unable to get a tackle in, the ball was laid off to the midfielder who worked the ball onto his right foot and drilled his shot pass Dowling into the corner on the net giving him on chance.

Chard now pushing forward and putting a next man up front were now chasing the game which meant they looked exposed at the back.

The killer blow came on 83 minutes with another wonderful finish, again giving Dowling no chance.

The ball was worked down the right, Dan Spurway was unable to get his foot in, the ball was squared and the striker unleashed a powerful drive into the top corner from 16 yards out. 3-0 down the game was all over.