Daventry fail to recover from giving Romulus a head start

Daventry Town's Joe Curtis missed a penalty at Romulus

Romuls won 4-0 in the Division One South clash with Daventry unable to recover from conceding three early goals.

Daventry have still not won this year and have now slipped to 18th and their last victory came just before Christmas. Assistant manager Neil Champelovier was included in the starting line-up as Barry Deacon and Jon Bukasa had not recovered.

Daventry went behind after just 16 seconds when former Bedworth United winger Chad Degville-Cross broke quickly to beat Ben Heath to stun the small group of travelling supporters.

Daventry missed a great opportunity to get back on level terms shortly afterwards when Kieran Fitzgerald was hauled down in the penalty box but keeper Raajan Gill made a superb from Joe Curtis’s ensuing spot-kick.

Roms increased their lead in the sixth minute from Jake Donnelly and wrapped it up in the 19th minute when Mark Danks scored their third goal. Captain Jason Lee came close but his header from Adam Creaney’s corner went well wide.

Three minutes before the break Luke Keen beat Heath with his 20th league goal of the season and the former Daventry striker is now joint top scorer in the division with Leek Town’s Tim Grice.

Daventry had a good shout for a penalty just before halftime for handball but the referee waved away the appeal and Creaney also saw his free-kick completely missed by Gill but the ball bounced the wrong side of the post.

A much better second half performance denied Roms any more goals and full back Dan Childs almost gave the Daventry supporters a goal to cheer but his angled drive was saved by Gill.