Just four days after exiting the FA Cup after a 20 penalty kick thriller at Dartford last Tuesday, Canvey Island exited the FA Trophy in poor fashion against lower league opposition in the form of AFC Sudbury.

Canvey started brightly and Chris Moore put Canvey Island ahead in the sixth minute; easily heading the ball past Nicky Eyre at his near post from Kevin Dobinson’s free-kick after Eyre failed to collect the ball.

Canvey’s lead was short lived though and Sudbury put their selves back on level terms after 14 minutes. Rhys Darg connected with a short cross and powered his header into James Russell’s bottom corner.

Robbie King may have done better when receiving Matt Game’s free-kick on 17 minutes, but he didn’t expect to have the ball. He quickly squared it to Danny Heale who put over from 10 yards.

King was on the receiving end of a hefty two footed tackle, for which Danny Swain was promptly booked. The resulting free-kick from 30 yards out was nodded over the crossbar by Moore.

Taylor Sinfield was Sudbury’s second booking of the game on 28 minutes, before a long ball up-field was missed by both Danny Heale and Jay Curran, but fell coolly for on-rushing Alex Rhodes. Rhodes struck the ball at Eyre, with the ‘Keeper pulling off a fantastic one-handed save to put the ball out for a corner.

With seven minutes until half-time former Billericay forward Dave Wareham silenced his previous critics by capitalising on a weak back pass and going almost unchallenged down Sudbury’s left before cutting inside and firing the ball across Russell and into the goal off the far-post.

Rhys Darg completed Sudbury’s first-half trio of bookings on 44 minutes before Danny Heale narrowly headed Kevin Dobinson’s corner over the bar in added on time.

H/T: Canvey Island 1 - 2 AFC Sudbury

The second half of today’s game was a drawl at times with Sudbury, content with their lead forcing the game into a snail’s pace. Canvey resorted to their ineffective long-ball down the middle routine where the likes of Matt Game, Jay Curran and Danny Heale were often crowded out and left influential players like Robbie King and Alex Rhodes literally waiting in the wings. You could be forgiven for smirking at comments such as it was more entertaining watching the grass grow than the head tennis on the pitch at times.

Canvey swapped things about on 60 minutes replacing Kevin Dobinson with Jason Hallett who had bravely made himself available for today’s game after the passing away of his Father during the week.

Nicky Eyre was caught out for his persistent time-wasting and was added as Sudbury’s fourth player to receive a caution on 65 minutes before Canvey’s Matt Game and Frankie Everett had their names taken on 68 and 71 minutes respectively.

Sudbury’s only effort of the half came on 72 minutes when their forwards broke free of Canvey’s backline on the counter-attack. James Russell was forced into an acrobatic save, pushing the ball away for a corner to deny an almost certain final nail in the coffin.

For the final fifteen minutes, Canvey went 3-4-3 with Hussein Isa replacing Frankie Everett and it was only then that they started to regain some composure and play the spray the ball around the pitch. As a result Eyre’s only save of the half was forced by Alex Rhodes with just minutes remaining.

Sudbury wasted more time substituting Ryan Hemshaw for Dave Collins on 89 minutes before Danny Heale’s appeals for a soft penalty were laughed away in stoppage time to sum up the game as a whole.

Today was never a truer moment to prove that the better the opposition, the better Canvey perform and the Yellow Army will hope that with two further Cup fixtures approaching, this blip fizzles out quickly before the Gulls return to League action in November.

F/T: Canvey Island 1 - 2 AFC Sudbury