Ryman League Division One South
Whyteleafe 0 Hastings United 0
Despite the lack of goals this was an entertaining and tough draw between two sides who wanted to play the game along the ground on Whyteleafe's excellent artificial surface.
Hastings played some tidy football and enjoyed the better of the possession but it was Whyteleafe who consistently looked the side likelier to score.
The visitors were relieved in the 4th minute when a shot from Roscoe DSane ricoched off the head of Hastings' Marc Pullan and away for a corner. On 16 minutes captain Dylan Merchant climbed the highest to meet a corner but his header also cleared the crossbar.
Hastings seemed to relish the playing on the pitch though and enjoyed a healthy share of the possession. But they struggled to create meaningful chances; the shots they did have tended to go high or wide and Sheikh Ceesay rarely seemed troubled.
Whyteleafe almost worked their way in again on 34 minutes when Nathan Simpson found himself in an advanced position and almost forced the ball in but Josh Pelling managed to smother chance.
Right at the end of the half, Hastings thought they had taken the lead when Joe Shelley found himself in space inside the box and headed past Ceesay. His celebrations were short-lived as the linesman flagged him offside.
The visitors had a half chance early in the second half when Ade Olorunda's overhead shot was easily blocked but there were few chances of note for a long spell of the second half. While Hasting contained to impress passing the ball around and depriving Whyteleafe of possession, they had little of note to talk about in the top third of the pitch.
Leafe substitute Greg Andrews again looked dangers when he came on. With his back to goal and closely marked he very nearly surprised everyone with a curling effort which Pelling just managed to deal with and on 72 minutes a through ball from Jason Henry gave him the chance to shoot from close range but the effort was weak and easy enough for Pelling.
The visitors had two more chances of note. Firstly, Darren Boswell fired on goal from close range forcing an excellent reaction save from Ceesay and then a ball rebounded of the referee Mr Sheldrake, leaving the Whyteleafe defence out of shape but the Hastings forward line failed to exploit the opportunity.
Whyteleafe: Ceesay, Patterson-Bohner, Simpson, Smith, Merchant, J Thompson, Fowler (E Thompson), Henry, DSane, Clayton (Andrews), Graham.
