Essex Senior League London APSA 2 Burnham Ramblers 4 LONDON APSA boss John Higley took pride in his side s performance against table-topping Burnham Ramblers on Saturday, although a series of individual errors undermined their performance. While their op

Essex Senior League

London APSA 2

Burnham Ramblers 4

LONDON APSA boss John Higley took pride in his side's performance against table-topping Burnham Ramblers on Saturday, although a series of individual errors undermined their performance.

While their opponents impressed with their fluid play, defensive mistakes in each half allowed soft goals to be conceded.

APSA re-emerged for the second period with their usual levels of commitment and managed to level, but further slip-ups left themselves with too big an obstacle to overcome.

"I thought we played really well, despite the result," said Higley.

"We made some bad errors, which cost us, but apart from that we matched Burnham.

"We were without Auybnn, Hussain and Dakri and still matched Burnham, who are the league leaders. Take the mistakes out and, of course, it would have been a different game."

The visitors began the game at the Terence MacMillan Stadium like title-chasers, moving the ball around quickly and making APSA chase the ball.

Burnham opened the scoring on eight minutes following an APSA corner. As they cleared the ball, the Ramblers swept down the other end of the pitch with Hawkins knocking the ball down for the on-rushing Adams to fire them ahead.

Burnham were two up on the half-hour as Tapper was caught in possession and Lewis crossed for the unmarked Hawkins to head the ball in.

Unperturbed, APSA, picked themselves up and came straight back at Burnham with Shah playing the ball out wide to Greg Akpele, who skipped past one challenge and into the box where he was up-ended.

The forward dusted himself down to convert the penalty himself to give his side hope at half time.

The momentum carried on after the break as APSA equalised with their first attack.

Having not given Burnham any breathing space all game, Akpele again put the defence under pressure and a stray back pass was latched upon by Lata, who slipped the ball under the advancing keeper.

APSA were now in the ascendency, but another error allowed Burnham to regain the lead on 60 minutes when Shah's poor clearance fell to a midfielder, who passed the ball to Lewis to score.

Hamblett and Akpele both had efforts turned away by the Burnham keeper, but a late goal for the visitors confirmed their victory.

APSA: Brown, John Langton, P Mpalampa, Shah, Tapper, Ellis, S Mpalampa, Hamblett, Akpele, Lata, Jamie Langton, Subs: Broe, McCarthy, McCullagh, Gabor.