High tempo Torquay United too much for Bath City on Easter Monday

A huge Bank Holiday crowd at Plainmoor was treated to an exhibition in high tempo, aggressive football from a confident Torquay United.

The ingredients were in place for a comfortable home win over struggling Bath City but the Gulls still had to work hard against a stubborn opponent, breaking the deadlock through loanee Reece Evans before being pegged back by a fine equaliser.

It was then the Dylan Morgan show, as he bagged a superb hat-trick to seal the 4-1 victory, following on from the Good Friday success at Weston-super-Mare, and set United up for the weekend trip to Slough Town.

“It was enjoyable, we kept the tempo as high as we could after a tough game on Friday,” said United boss Jimmy Ball. “Bath were a difficult opposition to break down and we had to move them around quickly, and we did that in the end.

“It is difficult to break down a block against a team that doesn’t want to come out and engage, but it was pleasing for us, and I’m pleased for Dylan, so a happy day.

“I could have made seven changes but, after two clean sheets, I didn’t think any of the back four deserved to come out of the team. We kept the back four intact but we were forced into the goalkeeper change because Seb [Stacey] has a little something with his groin.

“We freshened things up in attacking areas and really nice [to see Reece Evans score]. He is athletically impressive and he’s still figuring this out because it is very different from Academy football.

“Dylan is playing high tempo football and with a bit of aggression, even getting booked. He’s got to play on the front foot, play on the edge and give full-backs a really hard time. He did that today and got exactly what he deserved.

“The players enjoyed controlling the game in the second half. I didn’t want it to be slow, just stay in the mindset of being aggressive.

“I’m concentrating on us picking up three points and a tough place to go on Saturday. The lads have got to recover and go again to keep getting three points to see where we lie at the end.”