AFTER conceding two goals in ten minutes and having a defender sent off on the half hour, Frome Town couldn’t find a response and Hungerford were well worth their victory.

Frome’s defence were all at sea right from the start of this match and in the 5th minute as Dan Lloyd-Weston hit a clearance into Connor Roberts, Hungerford were presented with a very good chance to open the scoring, and Frome were lucky to escape as the follow-up shot went just wide.

Two minutes later the frailty resulted in the opening goal as a ball from the left wing passed in front of the static defence allowing James Clark to dink the ball through to the unmarked Stefan Brown who scored easily from ten yards with everyone looking long and hard at the linesman.

Darren Jefferies had a chance to draw level a minute later as he brought a save from Paul Strudley and in the 10th minute Jefferies again had a chance, but as he delayed his shot, Hungerford worked the ball straight up to Brown who found himself one on one with Lloyd-Weston, who could do nothing to stop the striker going round him and shooting into the far corner from a tight angle.

Hungerford nearly made it 3-0 in the 20th minute as Gary Preen found himself though only goal only to be denied by a combined desperate effort from Lloyd-Weston and Roberts.

After 25 minutes, it was hard to see how Frome could get back into this match as Hungerford were now quite content playing deep and protecting their lead.

Only a fine fingertip save from Lloyd-Weston prevented the visitors from going 3-0 up as Preen again burst through unchallenged and Hungerford then looked to have a very good penalty appeal turned down as well as Roberts tangled with an attacker in the aftermath.

Frome’s day went from bad to worse in the 31st minute as Brown again carved open the home defence and Marcus Mapstone was shown a straight red for an obvious pull back on the last attacker when he he was the last defender.

Manager Nick Bunyard immediately reacted by bringing on central defender Jordy Nkunga at the expense of Darren Jefferies.

The ten man Frome side missed a golden opportunity to get back on terms in the 36th minute as the Hungerford defence surprising failed to deal with a crossfield ball allowing Corby Moore to challenge and charge down the ball.

As it rolled to Liam Monelle, he found himself ten yards out and presented with an open goal, but leant back and the ball cleared the crossbar by a long way.

A minute later a flare-up involving Tyler Sibbick and Hungerford’s Diak John involved in a pushing contest that resulted in a yellow for each of them, but when order was restored, the red-hot atmosphere had cooled a little by half time and the Frome had a mountain to climb.

After so much happening in the first half, the second half was a bit of a niggly, scrappy anti-climax with Hungerford content to sit on their lead and use their numerical advantage to soak up anything that Frome threw at them and then use the pace of their forwards to cause problems on the counter attack.

Nat Jarvis went very close to increasing Hungerford’s lead in the 54th as he opened his body and curled a left foot shot on the Frome crossbar.

In the 60th minute, Matt Day let fly with a perfectly struck shot from at least 35 yards that Lloyd-Weston just managed to push away for a corner.

At the other end, Frome were struggling to carve out a clear opportunity until Ricky Hulbert came on to replace Tyler Sibbick, and he had a great chance to score in the 82nd minute as he swivelled and turned and shot from 12 yards only for the ball to miss the far post.

With two minutes to go after Jon Davies had been clattered by a tackle from Rhys Tyler that somehow was not punished with a card of either colour, he glanced the resulting free kick just wide of the far post.