Thackley 7 Nostell MW 0

 Thackley did not so much canter as saunter to victory over Nostell at Dennyfield.

They banged in seven goals and it could easily have been double figures as the woodwork, a saved penalty and goal-line clearances all helped to keep the scoreline down.

Credit must be given to the battling Nostell players because had they allowed their frustrations to affect them the carnage would have been far worse.

The man who did most damage was four-goal hero Nicky Matthews, although he did blot his copybook by failing from the spot.

The scoreboard started clicking round when Andy King raced onto a ball into space in the corner of the area and drilled a shot in by the foot of the post.

Matthews netted his first from a tight angle soon after and when visiting keeper Sam Dobbs could only parry a shot following a free-kick, James Firth slotted in.

Gareth North cleared a King shot off the line to deny Thackley a fourth.

Matthews grabbed his hat-trick with a quickfire double just after the hour. He netted with an overhead kick following a corner before finishing coolly when faced with a one-on-one.

Sandwiched between those strikes, visiting skipper Dave Watts brought down Thackley substitute Matt Mathers just inside the area. Matthews placed the spot-kick to the bottom corner but Dobbs dived to his left to make a superb one-handed save.

Another rapid-fire double turned it into a seven-star display by the home side. A looping Matthews header converted Firth’s free-kick from the centre circle in the 81st minute and three minutes later Reds skipper Ross Daly waltzed through to complete the scoring.

Thackley boss Dave Morgan said: “I’m never happy and I gave them a bit of a doing at half-time. I thought they were taking things a bit for granted and I wanted to knock that out of them straight away.

“We would have settled for seven and a clean sheet before the game so I can’t be too critical but I have been talking about consistency and goals changing games and we had as much possession and created as many chances the week before at Maltby but we ended up losing 2-1. We have a lot of inexperienced players who need to learn valuable lessons from our last two games.”