ANDOVER Town suffered a 2-1 defeat against Ringwood last weekend despite playing an impressive first-half and going ahead early in the game.

Town travelled down the A31 to Ringwood hoping to repeat their victory in the home fixture back in November.

The away side started on the front foot and dominated exchanges in the first quarter and unsurprisingly went ahead in the 18th minute.

Following a misdirected clearance, Samjay Samunda fastened onto the ball on the edge of the area and fired in a fierce low shot, giving the home keeper no chance. (0-1)

Andover were pushing forward confidently and as the first half ensued this looked like one of the better first halves of the season to date.

In the final minute of the half, Town’s position looked to have strengthened when Ringwood’s number 11  Fishlock was given a straight red card when he scythed down Josh Ngombi who required a lot of attention before he was able to continue.

As the second half got underway the 10-man Ringwood looked energised and were certainly on top.

It was no real surprise when, in the 60th minute, left back Pat Correia broke into the penalty area and slid the ball home to make the score 1-1.

And as the half progressed it looked more like Andover were the side playing with 10 men.

Ringwood were dominating the half and only some last-ditch defending kept the scores level.

The last ten minutes were real back-to-the-wall stuff from Andover who were manfully holding on to preserve their point.

But in the 88th minute substitute Luke Pothas hit an unstoppable shot into the roof of the net to make the score 2-1 with only a few minutes remaining.

Despite valiant efforts from Town Ringwood held on and the match finished with a 2-1 victory to the home side but not before Andover’s Kieran Diaz-Benitez was red-carded in the 92nd minute when he had to bring down the Ringwood striker who was bearing down on goal and looking certain to score.

Town's next match is against Ash United at home on Tuesday, February 20. Kick-off is at 7.45pm.