March 19 AFC Bournemouth 0-4 Hull City Att: 8895

Last updated : 21 March 2005 By Justin Loader
Neil Young returned to the starting line up to replace James O'Connor, but other than that the team was unchanged from the one which won at Walsall the previous Saturday.

The teams were quite evenly matched for the first 25 minutes, although chances were at a premium. Hull took the lead in the 26th minute when a ball was played in to Nick Barmby, who hooked the ball through to Ryan France whose shot beat Neil Moss from close range.

Just 5 minutes later Hull doubled their advantage. Craig Fagan was allowed to run along the goal line and his low centre was poked home a yard out by Stuart Elliott under pressure from Young. This left Bournemouth with a mountain to climb.

HT: 0-2

Into the second half, and Mathew Mills almost got Bournemouth back in the match, but his vicious shot was saved at point blank range.

Bournemouth were once again to finish a game against Hull with ten men. While waiting to set up a free kick Shaun Maher was involved in an incident with Craig Fagan, and after a discussion with his linesman the referee showed Maher the red card to make the Cherries task even harder.

The game was over 5 minutes later: a ball deep to the far post found top scorer Elliott totally unmarked to volley past Moss for his 27th goal of the season.

With heads dropping, Hull added a fourth goal shortly afterwards, a quick free kick by Barmby was drilled in by Damien Delaney, with the defence once again stood watching.

With ten minutes to go Brian Stock, Alan Connell and Dani Rodrigues replaced Adam Green, John Spicer and Steve Fletcher but the game was up. Rodrigues managed to charge down a goalkeeper's clearance but the resulting shot hit the corner flag. It wasn't to be our day.

Nobody had a great game but Spicer never gave up the cause.


AFCB:
Moss, Moore, Maher, Mills, Young, O'Connor, Spicer, Browning, Elliott, Fletcher, Hayter
Subs: Stewart, Coutts, Connell (for Green, 80), Stock (for Spicer, 80), Rodrigues (Fletcher 80)

Justin Loader, Hedge End