ASH Donohue’s second-half strike turned out to be the much-needed winning goal for Teignmouth on Thursday as they edged a 4-3 win over Elmore at Horsdon Park.

Six different scorers found the net in a game where Teignmouth led by three until injury-time. Elmore striker Tom Angell, the only man to score twice, and teammate Mason King bagged a goal each in the dying minutes to make the visitors sit less comfortably, but their efforts ultimately counted for very little thanks to goals from Brad Breslan, Charlie Palmer, Jack Baxter and Donohue.

'We wanted the lads to be ruthless in both boxes and we’ve not done that, so that’s disappointing,’ said Teignmouth boss Liam Jones. 

'We certainly should be scoring more goals and we should take pride in keeping clean sheets but fair play to Elmore; they’re a young side, they’re lively and they’ve got some very good footballers. Ultimately, they continued and for them to do that, we should be crediting them as well.’

Teignmouth got off to the best possible start. Within a minute of kick-off, Breslan was slipped through on the right flank and faced little resistance from the Elmore defence, allowing him to coolly curl home beyond goalkeeper Dan Morey-McKenna.

Elmore reacted well to the setback but were unfortunate as they saw several efforts repelled. Teigns custodian Zach Lee made a good save and a couple further shots were cleared off the line.

But the Teigns did not crack, and then doubled their advantage on 18 minutes when the ever-threatening Donohue crafted an opening on the right and squared the ball across the box for Palmer to tuck home.

Donohue was becoming increasingly frustrated as three good chances went begging during the half but the visitors did add a third goal just before half-time. Breslan was forced out of the penalty area and found Baxter with a sideways pass. The midfielder brought the ball into the box and skilfully meandered his way around three defenders before drilling the ball past the goalkeeper.

Elmore put themselves on the board 12 minutes after the restart. Teignmouth committed too many men forward for a corner and found themselves exposed at the back, which the Eagles exploited with a clinical counterattack. Angell’s initial shot was well-saved by Lee but the rebound fell back to the striker’s feet and he made no mistake on the second time of asking.

Teignmouth would strike next. After bruising the woodwork yet again, Donohue finally got his goal at the midpoint of the second half as he tapped home from point-blank after the ball had pinball around the penalty area.

The Teigns appeared to rest on their laurels a little too much, though, as Elmore slashed the deficit with two goals in injury-time. First, substitute Michael Humprheys whipped in a quick free-kick that caught Teignmouth off-guard and was converted by Angell at the near post. Then, with the final action of the game, Alec Holifield charged forward and fired a sumptuous ball across the face of goal for King to poke into a vacant net.

'We were a bit disappointed with the way we managed the game towards the end,’ Jones admitted. ‘We’ve probably tried to over-play when we didn’t need to – we had strikers on the pitch who could be dangerous. 

'I think we’ve learnt lessons from it but in fairness there was no time left [after Elmore’s third goal] so they were never going to equalise. It’s disappointing but like I said to the lads in there, let’s not get disappointed with winning games; we were disappointed Saturday because we were poor at Holsworthy and we lost the game. 

'Tonight was just about getting the three points and then you’re bouncing on with a bit of momentum, so I won’t be overly critical, certainly at this time year, about winning football matches.

'There was some harsh words amongst [the Teignmouth players] coming off the field, and I heard them walking in and I said to them that that’s not a normal football match; from the hour mark, to be making several changes, it had a pre-season feel about it, and I’ve created that feeling. 

'The lads have done well to get three points and that was the target at the start of the game; to come here and win. It wasn’t to score x-amount of goals – ideally you want to score as many as you can and keep a clean sheet – but this is the world of football, that just doesn’t happen. 

'There has been games this year where we deserve to win the game and we’ve not won the game, so to actually win the game we just need to move on now and focus on Saturday.’