MANAGER Trevor Rawlings reckons that the outcome of Corsham Town’s FA Vase humbling at Cowes Sports could have been a lot different had his side capitalised on their early dominance last weekend.

Corsham were left with a long and gloomy journey back from the Isle of Wight on Saturday after they were dumped out of the FA Vase in a 4-0 defeat at Cowes, with Rawlings’ men ending the afternoon with ten men after Sam Pring was sent off for an alleged professional foul.

“If you’d watched the first 30 minutes, and maybe even the first half, you would never have thought what was going to happen because of our dominance,” said Rawlings.

“We were 2-0 down at half-time and we were there wondering how it had happened. Even though the ball was in our keeper’s hands, the referee has seen something that no-one else in the ground has and sent Sam off and given a penalty.

“Steve (Allison) saved it but we were always chasing the game after that.

“We were always up against it because we had quite a few people missing and we also had five 17-year-olds in the side – there was quite a hostile crowd and maybe the inexperience of the team didn’t help us but I still thought the 11 we had out was good enough to win.”

Rawlings is hoping to sign defenders Ollie Webb and Nathan Phillimore from Chippenham Park ahead of this weekend’s Wiltshire Senior Cup clash with Wiltshire League side Supermarine Sports.

The Corsham boss added: “I need to say thanks to Dave (Ferris) for letting us bring those two in. We only had one fit centre-half this weekend and that’s Sam Ockwell, who’s been on holiday for two weeks.”

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