BOURNEMOUTH Poppies stunned Andover Town on Tuesday night who had to wait until the last few moments for a consolation goal against a team which had conceded 28 in their last five matches.

Manager Neil Benson was forced to make five changes from the side that beat Hamworthy on Saturday with leading scorer Michael Dixon, Alex Dockree and Joe Woodward out with injuries.

Into the starting line up came Ike Robertson, Craig Blakeman, Lewis Benson, Claudio Herbert and young Tyler Austwick at full back, making his debut and with Cameron Hough and Bradley Benson on the bench along with Jean-Terrach Bavangila.

The beginnings didn’t indicate how the match was going to progress as Town went close early on as Oli Yates tested Vaughan in the visitors’ goal.

Michael Weatherall in the home goal made a fine save and it soon became obvious that the visitors had a game plan to frustrate Andover by closing them down early with aggressive tackling and playing an offside game.

Their front runners were quick but the home defence with Matt Scott at the centre was holding firm and the half ended with no sign of the recent glut of goals that Bournemouth had suffered in their previous matches.

With the second half only three minutes old Andover’s defence failed to clear a simple ball and Sam Pekun capitalised on the error to score an easy goal.

Robertson had an effort just wide then just on the hour another goal for the visitors as the ball was scrambled over the line again by Pekun.

Andover were unable to combat the offside trap and Robertson was caught out on many occasions and were unable to find a way through.

With time running out Cameron Hough replaced Herbert but with five minutes remaining disaster struck again when the defence failed, this time with a poor back pass and gave Diop Evans another simple goal to give them a 3-0 lead.

Town’s final substitution was to bring on Jean-Terrach Bavalinga for his debut replacing Blakeman and they suddenly seemed to come to life too late, and from a free-kick outside the area, Danny Urry scored probably the best goal of the game..

This was probably Andover’s worst performance of the season and credit to Bournemouth as their game plan worked.

They now have a break before the next match with Lymington Town on Saturday March 21 for manager Benson to reassess and ensure that the team doesn’t have a repeat performance.