A game that is best filed in the soonest forgotten and move on drawer.

There are strict guidelines regarding opinion of refereeing performances on National League club’s websites, so we will park that one and once again move on.

On a thankfully milder evening than of late, Jay Saunders made three changes from Saturday’s side with Bailey Akehurst, Jeremy Santos and GianLuca Botti coming in for Scott Wagstaff (injured), Nazir Bakrin and Trevan Robinson who took places on the bench.

An eagerly awaited contest, for a decent Tuesday night attendance of 800, between an Eastbourne Borough team, for whom a win would see them climb into third place whilst for the home side would place them within touching distance of the play-off positions. But, within the opening five minutes, the game was set on an entirely different course.

The Angels had started the game brightly, forcing an early free kick and from that a third minute corner that brought the usual jostling for position in the six-yard box as Sean Shields prepared to deliver. The jostling developed into something a little more which ended with Eastbourne’s Brayden Johnson going to ground and with that referee Emily Heaslip produced a red card and Garrett Kelly’s involvement was at an end.

The game plan was ripped up in a moment and Tonbridge needed to find a level of commitment that impressed their manager greatly: “I’m proud of the boys’ effort to play 90-odd minutes with, at first, 10 men against a full-time team. I’m frustrated we had an opportunity to show what we’re capable of and close the gap. A lot’s happened out there but I don’t think there was a bad tackle and there’s been God knows how many yellow cards and red cards.”

When the corner did eventually get taken, Ronny Nelson headed marginally over.

As Tonbridge adjusted to the man disadvantage, Eastbourne pressed forward with Pierce Bird bringing a low save from Matt Rowley and a header from John Shamalo that was narrowly wide.

After surviving the opening half-hour, the Angels began to pose a threat of their own with successive corners but, on 36 minutes, the visitors took the lead when a right-sided cross found its way to the left side of the box from where Kai Innocent drove his shot into the bottom corner.

The second half opened with the 10 men of Tonbridge containing their opponents relatively comfortably whilst looking to counter on the break. On 65 minutes, an innocuous booking for tossing the ball away a few inches for Botti was to have greater consequences soon after.

Eastbourne doubled their advantage on 67 minutes when Shamalo side-footed home from close range following a corner and, with frustration playing its part, Botti challenged the Eastbourne goalkeeper, Joe Wright as he cleared the ball to bring a second yellow and subsequent red.

The visitors, strangely with a two-man advantage, called time on their evening and played out the remaining quarter-hour with possession mainly played out in their own half before the referee’s final whistle brought a chorus of irate boos from the home support.

 “The players are just gutted because it was a game in hand for us over some teams and it was an opportunity to close the gap on the play-offs and I think if we had won tonight we’d be a point outside the play-offs and three points behind Eastbourne with two games in hand and the opportunity gets taken away from us.

“Is that our own undoing? As I say, if I see it (on video) and it’s down to Garrett then it will be dealt with - because I think for us they’re a little bit disappointed because we fancied our chances tonight but it’s happened,“ added Jay.

Picture: David Couldridge