Battling Bexhill push leaders all the way

United, struggling towards the foot of Sussex Division Two, pushed leaders Wealden all the way in the second round of the SCFA RUR Charity Cup.

"I would say it's as well as we've played this season," said Trivett, "but there's still a lot more to come from us yet. We've still got things to work on, but we're taking a lot more positives from games now. I think the players have realised that unless we really perform as a team every single week, we're just not going to be competing with this division.

"We ran them closer than they thought we would I think. I don't know if you can call a loss a good result, but the performance was good and we were very close to getting it.

"We battled really hard and showed a bit of quality at times. The defence was good and it all looked a lot better on Saturday. I think we will take a lot of belief out of Saturday's game and we know if we can compete with them, we can compete with any team in this division."

Not only did they compete, but they actually led for a while during the second half as well after Dave Carey had executed an inch-perfect lob in the 50th minute.

Their 2-1 advantage at that point only lasted 10 minutes, though, because centre-half Sean Brownell tied it up on the hour and Steve Davis struck the winner in the aftermath of what Trivett called a "blatant" handball some 20 minutes from time.

In the first half, former Bexhill hitman Wes Tate scored against his old club for the second time this season to give Wealden a 20th minute lead.

But Darren Witham ensured the sides went in at half time on level terms by converting a penalty awarded for a foul on Carey, who was the lone striker in a 4-5-1 formation, 10 minutes later.