For Doneil Henry this will be a game “2” forget. 2 blunders, 2 goals and TFC go down to home defeat #2 of the season in front of a partially invisible “sell-out” crowd. Really TFC? 22591? I guess all the flies bought tickets too?

It all started so well for TFC. Jackson – or “GarField” as I like to call him – got stuck in early and scored his first goal for the club. I fully expected to see it credited later as an own goal to AJ Soares, such was the extent of the deflection, but no, it remains attributed to GarField.

Why GarField I hear you ask? Well, it seems Jackson polarises the support in much the same way as a few other players have done in the past. There are so many ‘haters’ for the poor guy that I feel like one of the few who enjoys watching him. In conversation with one friend, I came up with this name because I see his style of play as a combination of the “heart over ability” displayed by Terry Dunfield and the cynicism or physicality of a Nick Garcia or Dan Gargan – and thought he must be the secret lovechild of Dunfield and Gargan hence GarField !!!

After this it was downhill. The flies in the stands got worse, the home defence went to sleep and when Doneil Henry’s slack pass was intercepted by Kobayashi he slid it to Mullins and the 22 year old hit a rasper of a shot that nestled in the top corner. And then it started raining.

Luckily for TFC the score was kept to 1-1 before the half, but along with the sloppy defending on the part of the home side was some equally sloppy officiating. I highlight this attack from New England as the ball was out for several seconds and by several inches but luckily this only led to a shot that went wide of goal not to anything controversial. The same linesman just before the half was involved in the Jackson booking and again this was bogus. Many in the stands around me agreed this was the ref trying to set his stamp on a match that was not really dirty, and Jackson’s reputation got him booked, not the actual tackle.

One place the ref did get it right though was in awarding the penalty in the second half. Again the error fell to poor Doneil, the ball hitting his raised arm after trying to clear a retaken corner but you have to ask why the corner was retaken in the first place? Seems the Revs caused the infraction that saw the ref ask for it to be taken so they essentially got a second bite at the cherry ….

As the match headed to a close TFC threw men forward to try and get something from the game, subs Alvaro Rey, DeRo and Issey all tormented the New England defence and if it wasnt for some acrobatics from Shuttleworth in goal and more diving clearing headers from the man-mountain that is Andrew Farrell we might have taken something, but it was not to be.

Disappointed? absolutely. This game was there for the taking. Was it the refs fault? no. There were plenty of questionable calls, not least the retaken corner that led to the penalty, but TFC should not have been in this position on the first place.

Gallery for this game: HERE