Hinshelwood encouraged as Worthing edge five-goal thriller at Kingstonian

Zack Newton got his first goal since rejoining Worthing on loan at Kingstonian. Picture: Marcus Hoare

Efforts from Ricky Aguiar, Zack Newton - his first since rejoining the club on loan - and Oliver Pearce in a 16-minute spell after the restart fired the visitors to a 3-2 success.

However Newton missed a fine chance to make it 4-0 and put the game beyond Kingstonian, with the hosts setting up a tense finale as Scott Davies and Louie Theophanous netted in the final 13 minutes.

But Worthing managed to see it out, clinching just a second win in their previous seven league outings.

That was enough to take them up three places to seventh, a point off the play-offs.

With Hinshelwood encouraged by what he saw in spells at Kingstonian.

“It started to look a bit more like how you expect Worthing to play and how I want my teams to play," Hinshelwood said.

“For long periods of the game we looked a bit more like us. We got the ball down, we played and we believed in what we were doing.

“There was a spell within that where we were unplayable.

"The first 25 minutes of the second half, I thought we were excellent.

“With the players we’ve got that is what we can do to teams and showed what we’re capable of when we’ve got the belief about us."

A fine solo effort from Aguiar put Worthing on their way six minutes after the restart.

Newton doubled the lead six minutes later before Pearce struck 22 minutes from time and the match looked beyond K's.

Although it wasn't all plain sailing for Worthing, who faced a nervy final few minutes.

Davies made it 3-1 13 minutes from time then Theophanous got another back to give the home side hope on an unlikely comeback.

Hinshelwood's team did see it out but the Worthing boss was unhappy they didn't win by a more convincing margin.

He said: "We showed our vulnerable side letting them back into the game.

“Zack (Newton) had a one-on-one which could have put us 4-0 up, then you see the game out and you’re a bit more professional.

“We let them back in the game and they could and possibly should have got an equaliser, which would have been a travesty for us.

"We’ve got to look at it defensively, we look so naive.

“We keep on harping on about the age of the side but we’ve really got to start learning from games like Kingstonian.

“We’ve got to learn, progress and get better from that and learn to see games out when it gets to 3-0."

WORTHING: Perntreou; Parsons, Colbran, Jones, Crane; Edwards, Aguiar; Ajiboye, Pearce, Starkey; Newton. Subs: Barker (Ajiboye, 13), Clarke (Starkey, 82), Budd (Aguiar, 88), Gould, Kealy.

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