Lucky me, doing my match report/commentary, I was in front of a VERY noisy lad who, to his credit, practically 'sang' for a full 90 minutes, not that there was a great deal to shout about in the opening 45 minutes as both sides managed a spectacular zero shots on target betwen them. To their credit Brighton had done their homework on us as they closed us down as soon as a Cherries player gained possession. To that end the Seagulls prevented us from getting in to our passing game and we had no guile or invention to try something new to circumvent the home tactics.
Even though Brighton set about uys, and tried to push forward from time to time, they never really found a way through, leaving Boruc to some catching practice. That said chances at the other end were equally wayward as the Championship leading goal scorers failed find their range as well as the target. Sky Sports must have regretted picking this match for live coverage as the match reached half time goalless.
The second period wasn't showing any more promise than the first as the both sides were doing their best to cancel each other out, and doing a decent job doing that too!!
Although we didn't know it at the time, the substitution of an out of sorts Pugh for Adam Smith proved to the pivotal moment of the match when he came on in the 64th minute.
Within minutes of Smith coming on he received the ball from midfield and simply ran towards the toip of the penalty box, only to be hacked down by Lewis Dunk giving the ref with an easy decision to make ........ a free kick and a booking.
Then up stepped one Yann Kermorgant who produced a free kick of pure quality to break the deadlock with a stunning strike that would grace even a pitch even in the Premiership!! Cue mass celebrations in the away end! Listening back to my commentary, even I got a little carried away with my reporting!! Just as well my commentaty isn't a live feed for BBC Radio Solent!!
The excitement in the away end had barely died down when a Brighton attack broke down, the Cherries broke quickly, with the ball arriving with Kermorgant who dinked the ball over the top for Wilson. He twisted and turned a couple of times and then calmly slotted the ball home like a calm twisty, turny thing to get the away fans back out of their seats - not that we were sat down during the match for any length of time!!
In the end it was two moments of pure quality which separated the two sides, which left Brighton without a goal in nearly 8 hours of football.
With the rest of the weekend games to come, the Cherries Cherries are (still) happily on top of the table with a four point gap with a tasty away trip to Reading to come next week.
As for man of the match .......... not too many stood out for me this evening, but will give it to Yann Kermorgant for scoring an absolute peach of a free kick goal as well as setting up Wilson for his goal.
Just a footnote to this report ....... we have matched a club record 11 away wins, we have also equalled a second tier record for away goals (46). What a season this proving to be!!
AFCB: Boruc, Francis, Cook, Elphick, Daniels, Ritchie, Arter, Surman, Pugh, Kermorgant, Wilson
Subs: Camp, Ward, Stanislas, Pitman, Smith (for Pugh, 64), Gosling (for Kermorgant, 93 mins), Jones (for Wilson, 89 mins)
Andy Burton, Streatham Hill