Torquay United v H&W Sat 20th Apr 3pm

[UnitedinDevon]

With that we can conclude the TorquayFans.com Prediction League. I will be in touch with the winners in the coming days via PM. Congratulations Incredigull our champion with 46 points! A very tough season to get prediction points in with many highs and lows and not much in-between. Hope you've enjoyed predicting on here and such a relief that we are safe.

Thanks for your time doing this Louis

[portugull]

Thanks Louis enjoyed the ride.

You missed my 4-1 for todays game!

[Taelee73]

Perfect opposition for a last game of the season at home. They played attacking football, but with no one who could finish and left loads of space for us to exploit. Their keeper pulled off some great saves, we hit the woodwork twice and it could have been 10-5 in the end.

Booths goal is something special, sat up perfectly for him.

A great way to end a horrid season, who will stay and who will go, who knows. Just know I'll be back for the pre season friendlies in July

[Modgull]

What an enjoyable match and great result! Two sides going hammer and tongues at each other, playing great passing football, but one with a cutting edge and the other without. Certainly United were flattered by the scoreline but we were treated to the goal of the season from Booth - worth the admission money on its own. We had 22 attempts, 10 on target plus 2 hits on the woodwork, and 5 goals. For me, Booth was the game changer - up until then it looked nip and tuck but Lapslie's injury and a straight like for like replacement by Booth allowed him to boss midfield and allow McGavin the time necessary to use his one-footed turns to good effect. Although the latter was the sponsors MOTM, I thought Booth was the stand-out player. There were other fine performances though - from Jenkins-Davies, Archer and Jude-Boyd (who richly deserved the YPOTY award) in particular and I thought Hall was immense early on at the back making two crucial goal-line blocks at the point when the two teams appeared well-matched. It was great also to see assured cameos from the two youngsters in the closing stages, Thomas and Wellington. No one played badly.

[SuperNickyWroe]

With that we can conclude the TorquayFans.com Prediction League. I will be in touch with the winners in the coming days via PM. Congratulations Incredigull our champion with 46 points! A very tough season to get prediction points in with many highs and lows and not much in-between. Hope you've enjoyed predicting on here and such a relief that we are safe.

Thanks for doing this Louis
Made the season a bit more interesting!

[desperado]

Agree Skillsy I was thinking that at half time !
We could have scored 4 more and they could have had 3 with better finishing !

[standupsitdown]

Excellent performance. Could easily have scored more. Credit to Havant for giving it a go too. Nice to see two teams attack.
Good to see Booth play so well and the two youngsters come on and fit in well.
And a word for the ref. He was excellent. Best this season I think.
Not sure why no added time first half. Should have been at least 3 minutes but no one held the board up and the ref blew on 45 minutes.

[Dave]

Going to say it. No matter what future Aaron Downes has at our club, or how it may end for him, I'm always going to be grateful for these last few weeks of the season, how he's conducted himself off the field and in interviews, never making it about 'him' unlike GJ, factoring in the heightened pressure, transfer embargo, often having no other choice but to name a largely 'un-useable' 'fake' substitutes bench think he's done a decent job all round, and we've seen a slow but but noticeable change in style of play, I've had limited internet access, couldn't post after Tuesday, but we saw in that game a greater use of width.

As for this game, very difficult to quantify this performance as Havant were just so poor. I've stood up time and again for McGavin, I felt him to be a victim of GJ need to make players fit into his philosophy, rather than adopt a style of play, to suit the players he had, we saw the best of McGavin in this game, why ? In my opinion down to Booth's inclusion in midfield, and yesterday Booth proved to me, he's better midfielder than a defender, Booth had the pace, mobility and enthusiasm to go box to box, which allowed McGavin the freedom to just play his game, rather than McGavin expected to be one of the endless numbers of players flooding forward then expected in return to chase back, which will never suit his game.

This game could have 6.0 at half time, and no real surprise it turned into a bit of a training match second half. In conclusion I did join the wild celebrations Tuesday night, it wasn't for the season, because that's been shocking and we know all know it, it wasn't so much avoiding relegation either, more avoiding relegation coupled with our off the field issues, that has given our club a chance of re-birth.

Whilst my preference is a complete fresh start, part of me is now wondering what Downes could do, with a chance to bring in his own squad, and in print his own ideas, from what I've seen recently I do not think he'd be a Gary Johnson 2.0, what he's done as interim manager for me, at least makes him worthy of consideration, or even retention as part of any first team coaching set up under a new manager.

[Sesimbra]

Good posting Dave. I entirely agree. I think Downes deserves a free hand as a manager either here or with another club. He has been working under Johnson's autocratic style and may well have had little input. At least his post-match interviews were worth listening to.

[greb46]

Downes praised the supporters and players when due which was refreshing to hear instead of blaming everyone and everything around him when things went wrong.Whatever happens wish him well and if we survive in a new regime would be happy to give him a chance to see what he can do.

[brucie]

I do think Downes did an excellent job of keeping us in this division. Loads of abuse for our performances at Yeovil and Bath when we clearly coasted through games at half pace after we went behind.

I think what is forgottten is we barely had 11 fit players yet we won the key games after the aforementioned games at Truro and Taunton. It was tight in the end but to be fair we were never in danger of losing either match really. Even a had the one that hit the post at Taunton gone in we would most probably have got a far bigger attendance yesterday and no doubt would have won that game in any case, so yes well done to him and the players for getting us over the line in difficult circumstances.

[North Curry House]

What an enjoyable match and great result! Two sides going hammer and tongues at each other, playing great passing football, but one with a cutting edge and the other without. Certainly United were flattered by the scoreline but we were treated to the goal of the season from Booth - worth the admission money on its own. We had 22 attempts, 10 on target plus 2 hits on the woodwork, and 5 goals. For me, Booth was the game changer - up until then it looked nip and tuck but Lapslie's injury and a straight like for like replacement by Booth allowed him to boss midfield and allow McGavin the time necessary to use his one-footed turns to good effect. Although the latter was the sponsors MOTM, I thought Booth was the stand-out player. There were other fine performances though - from Jenkins-Davies, Archer and Jude-Boyd (who richly deserved the YPOTY award) in particular and I thought Hall was immense early on at the back making two crucial goal-line blocks at the point when the two teams appeared well-matched. It was great also to see assured cameos from the two youngsters in the closing stages, Thomas and Wellington. No one played badly.

Hammer & [[/b]Tongues conjures up a picture!

[Modgull]

Hammer & [[/b]Tongues conjures up a picture!

[RedGull1902]

Give downes a chance, like the guy and he understands the club and fans so why not

[United62]

What a difference it makes to go to Plainmoor (or any away fixture) and actually enjoy 90 minutes of entertainment.

No pressure. No stress (well apart from the hour detour at Sparkford which meant we arrived at Plainmoor with 20 mins to spare).

Tongue in cheek, I'd predicted 7-0 in the prediction league... I honestly thought it could have been that at half-time!

But that's it season over for another year, safety assured... now all we ALL want to know is who are the new owners, and, more importantly does my lawnmower need a service before the summer kicks in... **trundles off to shed**