CROWS boss Paul Attfield hailed Bobby Dance’s contribution after his four goals against Cockfosters moved Royston Town into the third round of the Floodlit Cup.

The former Hitchin Town front man, 24, produced a virtuoso performance at Garden Walk during Tuesday night’s 6-2 win in which he was almost unplayable at times and now Attfield hopes his striker can maintain this form for the rest of the season.

“Bobby looked good on Tuesday night and on Saturday and he brings players into the game and has a decent first touch,” said Attfield.

“He’s looking fit at the moment, which is good, so I think we’re starting to see the best of him and football is a confidence sport so scoring four goals in any game is going to do his confidence a world of good and he was probably a bit unlucky not to score another couple as well.”

Despite Dance’s exploits, Attfield says he was pleased with all of his players after playing 120 minutes of football on what was a far from ideal playing surface and that he is also happy with their application after the extended Christmas break.

“I thought it was a decent workout,” he added.

“In the second half we played well and we weren’t really on the pace in the first half. You see that quite a lot in football, though, when the game goes into extra time and the goals suddenly start coming.

“We probably needed that workout having not played many games recently and with the pitch cutting up quite badly due to the weather it was a bit difficult on the legs but I thought our fitness levels were very good.

“I was happy with how we got the ball down and played football and we can’t play any other way because it’s not as if we’ve got 6ft 3in strikers so we’ve got to try and play. But, to compensate for the pitch you’ve got to play at a really quick tempo and we did that on Saturday against Tring really well but we didn’t produce that in the first half against Cockfosters where we were just a little bit flat and we let them get at us a bit too easily. But, in the second half we controlled the game and into extra time we played some decent stuff.

“The win builds momentum and I’m pleased with the attitude of the players after having an extended break from playing. After putting in the performance against Tring it would have been easy just to sit back against Cockfosters but that didn’t happen.”