Royston Town 8 Welwyn Garden City 0 South Midlands Premier Division PAUL Attfield's young Crows put bottom-of-the-table Welwyn Garden City to the sword on Saturday with a thoroughly ruthless and entertaining showing in front of a bumper crowd of 231. Afte

Royston Town 8 Welwyn Garden City 0

South Midlands Premier Division

PAUL Attfield's young Crows put bottom-of-the-table Welwyn Garden City to the sword on Saturday with a thoroughly ruthless and entertaining showing in front of a bumper crowd of 231.

After a dismal start to the season, the visitors recently had a change of management and last week defeated Spartan South Midlands Premier League leaders Colney Heath in the League Cup so, on paper at least, the prospect of a tough game was in the offing.

As it was, Royston got on top of their opponents from the outset and the final scoreline was the very minimum the hosts deserved.

Attfield welcomed back Ross Collins in midfield following a two week absence, and Luke Robins, Arin Fehmi and Jorden Gibson all passed early morning fitness tests to bolster a squad still missing defenders Matt Cook, David Cain and Danny Apostolos.

Welwyn GC's tactic of playing a high defensive line was their downfall with Josh Bronti, Ricky Young and Robins all allowed too much space to get behind their defence to create an abundance of chances.

It was the pace of two of this triumvirate that put Royston 1-0 up when in just the fourth minute Bronti beat the offside trap and raced clear before neatly squaring the ball to Robins who converted from 10 yards.

The visitors had a good chance to level moments later when a direct free kick was superbly tipped wide by Gibson at full length, but just seconds later Young latched on to Fehmi's through ball and converted under the advancing 'keeper.

On 21 minutes Royston were 3-0 up when Bronti converted in similar fashion to his teammate, and although Welwyn GC then hit the crossbar from another direct free kick they had too few chances to break through Royston's resolute defence.

Ten minutes before the break Royston added a fourth when Ryan Lockett's well struck free kick was fumbled by the 'keeper and Collins reacted quickest to convert and by then the game was all over.

Bronti struck the post soon after the restart from close range and Lewis Endacott did the same minutes later with a vicious 30-yard effort.

Bronti wasn't to be denied a second goal though and another one-on-one chance in the 56th minute was clinically finished.

Welwyn were better on the ball in the second half and missed a couple of very presentable chances without testing Gibson, but a sixth goal for Royston with 25 minutes remaining was the start of a devastating period of the game.

Young added that sixth goal with another cool close range finish and Terry Lock added his first for the club from close range moments later as he followed up a save from his initial shot.

Young and Danny Dolan had efforts cleared off the line before Tom Malins completed the scoring late on when he raced clear from his full back position to angle a shot into the far corner from 12 yards and help steer his team to fourth in the table.

Speaking about the win, Attfield said: "This was a tremendous performance from the players. It would be easy to make that judgement based solely on the scoreline but we defended well when we had to, passed the ball well and went about playing most of the 90 minutes with good ruthlessness and desire levels.

"You can only beat what the opposition throws at you and we constantly exposed their weaknesses and overall it was an excellent three points for us."

Royston: Gibson, Malins, Fehmi, Jones, Endacott, Collins, Edwards (Dolan), Bronti, Young, Lockett (Lock), Robins (Morriss). Unused sub: Barlow.