Royston IV 5 Rickmansworth IV 0 FOUR first half goals ensured Royston of the East Hockey League Division Eight points on Saturday. Some excellent movement and passing well orchestrated by the experienced midfield trio of Steve Welding, Nick Broadl

Royston IV 5 Rickmansworth IV 0

FOUR first half goals ensured Royston of the East Hockey League Division Eight points on Saturday.

Some excellent movement and passing well orchestrated by the experienced midfield trio of Steve Welding, Nick Broadley and Mike Parsons led to goals by Broadley, Parsons, Craig Jackson and Keith Markham.

Rickmansworth started the second half in a much more determined fashion, but Royston were able to control the game and the visitors never looked likely to score.

- Having weathered the storm Royston started to again exert pressure on the visitors defence and Markham who had an excellent game throughout scored a second goal from a well worked short corner.

West Herts VI 9 Royston V 0

A STRONG West Herts side gave Royston a true thrashing on Saturday putting a total of nine goals away by the end of the match.

The first half was an even game with some good hockey played by both sides.

Royston though were not able to get many scoring chances and by half time were two goals down.

The second half saw West Herts turn on the pressure and with the Royston side being under-strength one from past weeks due to illness and unavailability, the goals started to mount up for West Herts.

With Royston down to nine men for a short time, this gave West Herts the chance to kill the match off.

The final score was perhaps not a true reflection of the match as Royston did show that they were capable of putting together some good moves, the young players putting in a very good effort.

Shefford & Sandy 111 0 Royston Men's III 7

HAT-TRICK'S from Paul Bloomfield and Colin Bateman gave Royston their first victory of 2007.

Royston travelled to Sandy determined to win their first league game since Christmas to maintain their top four position

With a squad back to full strength but still with changes in midfield with Tim Yow as the attacking centre half and Colin Smith as holding player in front of the impregnable back three of Dan Taylor, Pete Belcher and Matt Brunt.

The latter, at left back, had probably his best game of the season. When the ball did occasionally break through keeper Gary Pinner was always able to clear.

The brief was to go out hard for the first 35 minutes to gain the advantage, and push the Shefford & Sandy payers back into their own half.

This worked well with Royston winning more than penalty corners. However it was not from these corners that the goals came from.

Brunt and man-of-the-match Joshua Jamieson played excellent inter passing down the left flank and when the ball could nt be moved forward to Bateman, it came back into the midfield where Yow was then able to force wide to either Michael Welding at right midfield or Sam Polge on the wing, who every time beat his man and got to the dead ball line and deliver the telling cross first to Bateman and then to Bloomfield.

Going in at half time 2-0 up seemed a fair result but a poor reflection on the set piece penalty corner routines that were struck straight at the home keeper - something the team will again have to wok on at the training ground.

Again Polge roasted his defender leaving him for dead, and this time with both Bloomfield and Bateman in front of goal the telling pass was made to Jamieson whose shot from five metres went into the roof of net like a rocket.

From this Shefford appeared to resign themselves to defeat and the onslaught came first with Bateman's second & a further brace from Bloomfield to get his hat-trick. Welding & Polge started overlapping & passing together

As they tormented the home defence who resorted to desperate tackling in an attempt to stop the pace of the two young right-sided players. It was one of these moves that resulted in the second hat-trick of the game & final goal for Bateman.

In the final minutes Shefford attempted to break through but the excellent defensive line was never going to allow a player through & the game finished 7-0 to Royston.

Royston third travel to a late game at Blueharts in Hitchin next game and will want to repeat the 8-0 thrashing they gave them in October, but they must work on short corners to maintain this push and go for promotion.

Stevenage II 1 Royston I 1

AFTER controlling most of the match and creating a whole host of chances, Royston were left disappointed with their draw to Stevenage at the weekend.

The away side began brightly with top scorer Owen Russell hitting a post within five minuets.

Although Stevenage looked dangerous on the counter attack they never managed to stretch the Royston defence, as the visitors continued to spread the play.

Russell was forced to leave the pitch injured, but it was Royston who scored first from Dan Smith's strike.

The hosts managed to play their way into the game, but it was Royston that created the best chances to score, and failed to do so.

Even though Jerry Ross was harshly sin binned, Royston managed to keep their lead going into half time.

The second half was frustrating for Royston. Stevenage equalised early on and the away side missed chance after chance.

The game ended all square, but with half a dozen of the Royston players wondering how they could not scored.