Andover Town showed flashes of promise but eventually were defeated 3-0 away at Alresford Town in the Wessex League Division One game, writes Roger Fawcett.

They travelled to Alresford on a crisp, icy day hoping to break their relegation curse against the league leaders, but suffered the loss after conceding early goals.

The dry pitch, a welcome relief after weeks of waterlogged woes, saw a fast-paced opening with Andover threatening the Alresford defence in the first minutes.

But the game settled quickly and it was a pretty even contest with both sides moving the ball well and creating scoring opportunities.

But like many matches in this season, the hosts took the lead early on with a goal in the eighth minute from number 8 Scott Hills.

Like many of the goals which have been conceded this season, the defence looked frail and failed to clear the ball in the build-up to the goal.

Sadly the second goal followed pretty quickly in the 19th minute when a goalkeeping error allowed the ball to squirm free and to be poked into the again by Hills for his second.

The last 20 minutes of the half saw Andover get more and more into the game and were playing well.

It was 2-0 at the break.

The second half started and as in the last 20 minutes of the first, Andover were playing well stretching the home defence.

Striker Goodman was holding the ball up very well and providing a great spearhead for a potential goal.

Just as it looked like the tide had turned the old cliche of an ex-player coming back to haunt his previous side saw Zach Hine pop up in the 65th minute and fire in a low shot from the edge of the area to make the score 3-0 to Alresford.

The half moved on, Andover huffed and puffed but could not break the deadlock.

In truth, the home side managed the half out well and ran out comfortable winners at 3-0.

But there were encouraging signs, especially in the first half, that the away side were getting much more into the game.