Exeter City score late to draw

Goals come late as City conclude home campaign

A LATE PENALTY from Jayden Stockley salvaged Exeter City a point in the final home game of the 2015/16 Sky Bet League 2 season.

In a game that bore the hallmarks of an end of season encounter, Kevin Ellison looked to have secured all three points for the visitors in the eighty-sixth minute. But it was Stockley who had the final say, restoring parity from the spot in the dying stages as City rounded off the home campaign with a point.

There were two changes to the City side for the penultimate game of the Sky Bet League 2 season. Tom McCready slotted in at right-back, and Jordan Tillson came in to anchor an experimental midfield three alongside Jordan Moore-Taylor and Ollie Watkins. For the visitors, manager Jim Bentley decided to shuffle the pack following his side’s 4-1 defeat at the hands of Stevenage last weekend, introducing five new faces in an attacking 4-3-3 formation.

Despite the changes to the Morecambe side, it was one of the Shrimps’ regular faces that registered the first shot of the game with three minutes played. After a foul from Tillson on the edge of the area it was Jamie Devitt that stepped up to take the resultant set-piece, but the former Hull City man blasted his effort well over the crossbar and into the Big Bank.

There was a good tempo to the game as the Grecians looked for a final home victory of the campaign. Jayden Stockley, who scored a debut goal in the corresponding fixture last January, had a header blocked on the line by Adam Dugdale in the tenth minute, before Lee Holmes curled one inches wide of Barry Roche’s right-hand post in the next phase of play. Stockley was at it again shortly after, shooting narrowly wide in what was a carbon copy of Holmes’ effort moments before.

The hosts were looking menacing by the mid-way point of the first period with Stockley, Holmes and Watkins all linking up well in the final third. In the twenty-eighth minute a one-two between Holmes and Watkins on the edge of the area had the Morecambe defence at sixes and sevens, but Roche got down well to deny the City winger a fourth goal of the campaign.

With the Grecians’ play-off hopes ended at the Memorial Stadium last weekend and Morecambe assured of their place in the fourth tier next season, there was a real end of season feeling to this one in the April sunshine. City ended the half the livelier with Tillson looping an inventive volley over the crossbar with four minutes of regulation time remaining, but the referee whistled shortly after to bring to an end a relatively uneventful first half.

HALF-TIME: EXETER CITY 0–0 MORECAMBE