Rib injury rules out tough Taff (From Bournemouth Echo)

Rib injury rules out tough Taff

7:42pm Sunday 1st November 2009 in

• Skip social links
• Print
• Email
• Comments(0)

VETERAN Dolphins midfielder Taffy Richardson faces several weeks on the sidelines after sustaining a rib injury in their late show triumph at Alresford.

The evergreen 43-year-old, still plying his trade in the Wessex League almost 30 years after first lining up in adult football, suffered the injury shortly after coming on as a second-half substitute.

Table-topping Poole were trailing to a first-half strike from Simon Daunter and struggling to get back on level terms when Richardson strode on to the pitch.

He took a knock in the ribs soon after before bravely playing on, equalising and then seeing Steve Smith grab Dolphins’ dramatic 85th-minute winner with a close range header after getting on the end of Kevin Gill’s cross.

Poole boss Tom Killick said: “I brought Taffy on in the 60th minute and, almost immediately, he got quite badly injured, hurting his ribs. I had already used all my subs so he soldiered on.

“He couldn’t really move, but he managed to score from a rebound, tucking a shot home from an acute angle after Alresford’s goalkeeper Dan Chapman had parried Micky Hubbard’s original shot.

“Taffy was feeling quite bad straight after the game and had to go to hospital to get his injury checked out by the doctors. He had trouble breathing and they thought he might have broken his ribs.

“Apparently, they don’t X-ray ribs so he’s not quite sure what the situation is. But I spoke to him on Sunday and he was still in a lot of pain.

“He’s certainly not going to be playing football for a few weeks. It’s a big blow to us because he had just got himself fit after being out for two matches with a calf injury. We’d only just got him back and now we’re losing him again.”

Killick, whose title-defending team had lost two of their previous six games while drawing another, added: “We were poor in the first half but did play a bit better in the second.

“We weren’t at our best, but kept trying until the end and never gave up, which was the best part.”

Poole Town: Jones, Poore, Whitley, Lloyd, Dovell, Preston, Sturgess (Richardson, 60), Hubbard, T Smith (Gill, 65), Brown (Cook, 65), S Smith. Unused sub: Ackerman (g/k).