NEWTON Abbot Spurs came from two goals down to beat Torridgeside 5-3 at The Rec on Saturday.

Shaun Copp and Josh Parsons had the visitors in a surprise lead in the first half but James Moxon, Callum Noyce and James Overy turned the game on its head. T-Side’s Archie Holloway restored parity but a double from Jack Overy sealed all three points for an in-form Spurs side.

‘It wasn’t a good game for me – it was really frustrating,’ Spurs boss Marc Revell admitted. ‘It’s frustrating because we have played so well in the three previous games and showed lots of character to then go 2-0 down against a poor side. They are not very good but you can get dragged down to their level, and you underperform because the other team are dragging you down. 

‘We’re not a well-oiled machine but, that said, we showed character to come from 2-0 down to make it 3-2, get pegged back again and still score another two. I like to take the positives out of it and see that it was a good game for a neutral and a good game for our learning curve in the sense that we were two down and got hold of the game. 

South West Peninsula League Premier East. Newton Abbot Spurs versus Torridgeside AFC. 5-3 win fo Spurs. Torridgeside's first goal
Newton Spurs goalkeeper Kit Glanville is beaten by an effort from Josh Parsons. (Steve Pope/MDA)

‘We haven’t got many older, senior members of the squad anymore, so the squad has been reduced and pulled back so much that it is left to the lads to pull ourselves out of a hole, which they did on Saturday. 

‘We scored quite quick after going 2-0 down, which was key for the rest of the game – it gave us a good mentality going into half-time. 

‘A lot of my lads don’t realise what gets you goals is filling the box – you rarely see goals from outside the box or out wide, so I need three or four of them to get into the box. We also play better in the second half at The Rec, and we did – we proved ourselves.’

Spurs have been in handy form of late with only one defeat in their last seven league games. The Newton Abbot side are looking to finish the season strongly but Revell is weary of the calibre of opponents left on their Peninsula League schedule.

‘We’re going into a run now where we’ve got quite a few tough games,’ he said. ‘It won’t be an easy run-in, but to go into it with only one loss in the last seven is great. 

‘We finished seventh last season with a league cup semi-final, so if we could go better than seventh with our county cup semi-final I would see that as individual and team progress.’