Cherries beat Bristol Rovers

An AFC Bournemouth XI defeated a Bristol Rovers XI 4-1 at Dean Court on Tuesday afternoon.

The side was led by AFC Bournemouth development coach Chris Hargreaves, but the starting eleven only included one member of the Cherries development squad, in the form of right back Ryan Case.

He was joined in defence by Joe Partington and Steve Cook with Lorenzo Davids starting the game at left back, with Shwan Jalal in goal.

The midfield was made up of Donal McDermott, Richard Hughes, Eunan O'Kane and Wes Fogden, with Brett Pitman and Frank Demouge up front.

After less than ten minutes however Hargreaves was forced to shuffle his side around with Richard Hughes appearing to have aggravated his hamstring. The midfielder was replaced by Josh Carmichael, who slotted into a left back role with Davids moving into central midfield.

The game had a good pace, with a good tempo from both sides, but the game had to wait for a bit of quality to open the scoring. Demouge worked a nice link up with Pitman, before the ball was cut back to the Dutch striker who back heeled the ball into the back of the net.

It was the first time Demouge had really been involved in the game with most of the hard running coming from strike partner Pitman.

During the early part of the second half the Cherries had two clear penalty shouts, the first the referee awarded a free-kick despite the offence on Carmichael clearly coming inside the area, the resulting free kick was deflected following a good strike from Pitman, the second was given, but Pitman's effort was well saved by Bristol Rovers 'keeper Conor Gough.

Shortly after the penalty miss Pitman was replaced by development squad member Jordan Chiedozie.

Christchurch trialist Harry Cornick doubled the Cherries lead just minutes after replacing Eunan O'Kane as a 70th minute substitute, the non league youngster looking very direct from his right wing position.

Minutes later and another substitute Harrison Gilkes who had replaced Steve Cook, set up Chiedozie for the Cherries third.

The goal of the game was from the visitors with Eliot Richards thundering the ball past Shwan Jalal with a couple of minutes remaining, but there was still time for a Cherries fourth with another neat link-up exchange between Frank Demouge and Lorenzo Davids ending with Davids scoring with the final kick of the game.

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