Bath City (1) 2 Truro City (0) 1 – Tuesday 20 February 2024 – Vanarama National League South – Twerton Park
Match Report by Mark Stillman.
Tom Smith notched his 50th goal for Bath City to seal victory in Jerry Gill’s 300th match in charge.
The midfielder’s second in two games wrapped up a fifth successive win for the Romans in the league for the first time since August 2015.
They were made to sweat in the final stages as Connor Riley-Lowe netted in added time.
But having survived a late rally, City claimed a deserved success to continue their fine run.
The Romans were unchanged from Saturday’s win over St Albans, but were forced into an early alteration.
Richard Chin had already made a bright start, his cross seeing Dan Hayfield’s header magnificently tipped onto the bar by James Hamon, but it was Chin’s last key involvement as he pulled up with a hamstring injury and was replaced by Elliott Frear early.
Understandably it took the wind out of City’s sails but they benefitted from Truro’s wastefulness going forward, being caught offside six times in the opening 25 minutes.
Defensively the White Tigers started to be put under more pressure and they eventually caved just shy of the half hour.
Having linked up with Joe Raynes, Ewan Clark weaved inside the box and went down under contact from Andrew Neal.
Cody Cooke stepped up against his former club and sent Hamon the wrong way, drilling home his 10th penalty of the campaign to put City ahead.
Tyler Harvey, one of five ex-City men in the Truro squad, should have levelled two minutes later. Will Dean’s testing free-kick was met by the unmarked front man, but having scored in the last three meetings between the two he glanced his header wide.
Cooke side-footed wide from 15 yards after Smith set Frear away down the left before City were grateful for Raynes’ stunning block, throwing himself in the way of Riley-Lowe’s goalbound shot when he collected Harvey’s backheel from the byline.
Set-pieces looked like the visitors’ biggest threat, and they nearly levelled five minutes after the restart when Dean’s delivery caused chaos, resulting in Ryan Brett looping a header over after Adam Porter’s shot was blocked by Dan Greenslade.
Having weathered that storm, City extended their advantage with a landmark goal.
Frear collected the ball from Smith down the left before sending in a super delivery for Smith, who timed his run and cleverly steered into the bottom corner from six yards to make it 50 goals in all competitions, on his 200th league outing.
Kieran Parselle headed Clark’s corner onto the angle of post and crossbar and Scott Wilson thought he had his first goal of the calendar year but an offside flag denied his tap-in from another Frear pinpoint delivery.
With five minutes added play signalled, Truro suddenly found an added burst of energy.
Dan Sullivan’s piledriver was helped over the bar via the head of Parselle, and from Dean’s resulting corner Josey Casa-Grande was crowded out as former Roman Riley-Lowe took advantage, forcing home his first of the season from a couple of yards.
The lively Ollie Bray won another set-piece which concluded in Ryan Law scooping over under pressure before the full-time whistle was met by relief from most of another four-figure crowd, having seen their team survive a late onslaught to move them up to fourth.
Att:1051
City’s Line-Up: Casa-Grande, Raynes, Greenslade, Dyer, Parselle (c), Clark (Alabi 83), Hayfield, Cooke, Smith (Wilson 76), Chin (Frear 17), Russe. Subs not used: Batten, Lines.
Scorers: City – Cooke (pen 28), Smith (61); Truro – Riley-Lowe (90+2)
City Bookings: Raynes (88), Cooke (89)
Officials: M Conn, O Kaya, D Malyon