PERFORMANCES by Newton Abbot Spurs were like night and day from defeat at the hands of Bovey Tracey AFC eight days ago, to last night’s victory.

Stoke Gabriel & Torbay Police visited them under the lights at The Rec with Spurs prevailing 2-1 in yet another lively affair.

Home boss Connor Marshall was “over the moon” with the way his side bounced back from the Bovey loss, describing this latest performance as “exceptional”.

“The boys knew how disappointed I was and how disappointed they were against Bovey and tonight they just excelled, did everything I asked, sticking to our identity more.”

From the off they were far better, to the point that the opposing manager highlighted it too.

Stoke’s Matt Hayden, formerly of Bovey ironically, declared that Spurs “deserved the win from start to finish.”

For all of their good work in the first half, Marshall’s men were unable to find a breakthrough in front of their own supporters.

He commented, “We just need to take our chances more. We create them so well but if we don’t take them then we could nearly have lost points tonight that we otherwise, fully deserved.”

One possible reason for Spurs’ elevated performance could have been the return of a few key figures, both Tyler Joint and Finn Pearse coming back into the defence and the physical Brad Crocombe in there from the off.

As was the case against Bovey, there were plenty of big decisions for the referee to make with several yellow cards coming out of his pocket.

Stoke Gabriel felt that one of those could have been red though, a miscue from Lewis Breslan being compounded by a pull-back on the advancing forward.

Just moments later, Stoke midfielder Jamie Down followed Breslan into the book for a heavy and high tackle on Mason Dolman-Zuccarro. Talking of heavy challenges and Crocombe felled Tom Burt in a perfectly legal manner, the former Bovey man being forced off with injury as a result.

It didn’t take long at all after the second half commenced for the drama to be reignited in Newton Abbot- it was Spurs’ turn to appeal for a red this time.

Toby Pullman was really sharp on the night and as he burst through a hole, he was chopped down. The man in the middle turned down the last-man claims though and just gave Tom Dunlop a yellow but Hayden’s side weren’t out of the woods yet.

Pullman’s effort from the set-piece was cleared as far as the edge of the box where Owen Green sent it goalwards. A deft flick from fullback Tyler Joint beat goalkeeper Jim Weeks and sent the Spurs players into rapturous celebrations.

Down was then the subject of further Spurs appeals before being subbed off and Crocombe also went into the book.

The aforementioned Joint may have a wand of a left foot but after heading home the opener, he worked the space well and let off a well-placed shot with his weaker right foot to double his tally on the night.

It didn’t take long for the deficit to be reduced back to that single goal though, off of the back of a goalmouth scramble. Kane Gregory punched a corner into a group of bodies and despite his best efforts, the follow-up crossed the line, substitute Sean Adderley being credited with the goal by the Stoke social team.

At this point it could be argued that momentum was on the side of the away team with Marshall conceding that they continued to “pile on a lot of pressure.”

Hayden was on the same page, adding that “It maybe wasn’t until the last 10 minutes that it swung back in our favour.

“It’s just about instilling belief, any time we go forward we have to believe that we can get a chance, even down to the last 30 seconds, just keep believing that something will fall our way.”

After all, just one chance will do it and many associated with Stoke will have felt as if they had taken it.

Centre-half Jordan McCarthy, another to have followed Hayden over from his former employers, headed down into the ground at the death and it seemed for all the while that he had found the equaliser. A collective gasp echoed around The Rec when Kane Gregory got down to scoop the ball wide of the post and out for a corner- a moment deserving of winning the match.

For yet another 90+ minutes, Marshall cut an animated figure on the touchlines. On this, he said: “I feel like my heart is going constantly and the boys never seem to make it easy for me. But I love it, I love the adrenaline.

“I’m passionate, I love football, this is what I’ve come here to do, to win games and coach the lads to their best potential.”

He then went on to say, “Credit to Stoke, they were a great side that kept coming and didn’t give up at all. They’re a very talented and determined group.”

Hayden was equally as amicable in his closing statement: “I can’t take anything away from them, they battled hard, they fought more than us and they wanted it more than us from the start which is disappointing for me to say because up until this point, we have been that side so to turn up today and not to be that side, it hurts.”

Both sides will go again this weekend, Stoke heading away to Torridgeside AFC and Spurs visiting Bishops Lydeard, hopeful of “taking this momentum forward.”