Royston Town 7 Arlesey Athletic 1 ROYSTON'S third game in five days ended in emphatic fashion with the demolition of Arlesey Athletic at Garden Walk. Boss Paul Attfield rested Jamie Babbage and Arron Welch from the squad and left Luke Robins, Carl Edwards

Royston Town 7 Arlesey Athletic 1

ROYSTON'S third game in five days ended in emphatic fashion with the demolition of Arlesey Athletic at Garden Walk.

Boss Paul Attfield rested Jamie Babbage and Arron Welch from the squad and left Luke Robins, Carl Edwards, Lewis Endacott and Ricky Young on the bench with the intention of keeping as many fresh legs as possible for the eagerly awaited Kings Langley game on Monday evening and everything worked out perfectly as Royston raced into a five goal lead by the interval.

Four of their goals came from Craig Hammond and such was the Crows' dominance that they were allowed the luxury of taking off both Hammond and central defender David Cain at half time.

The visitors looked fearful of Royston's attacking prowess from the start as the hosts attacked with great pace and vigour.

In just the third minute Royston took the lead when Hammond headed home a Jamie Morriss corner at the fast post and two minutes later the striker was denied a second by Scott Waters in the visiting goal.

With Arlesey continually looking shaky in defence Hammond added a second in the 11th minute when he raced into the area and hit a low angled drive from a tight angle inside the keeper's near post.

The game was literally made safe by the half way mark of the first half with Jamie Morriss drilling home an unstoppable 25-yard free kick past the unsighted Waters.

Hammond completed his 45 minute blitz by firstly smashing home a vicious 20-yard half volley off the underside of the crossbar and heading into an open net soon after following some comical keeping and defending.

The visitors came out with some intent in the second half and the game became stretched as both teams struggled to maintain effective possession with the pitch cutting up in places after the heavy rainfalls of late.

Arlesey reduced the deficit on 60 minutes when some defensive hesitation allowed Hooper to slot past Jorden Gibson into the corner but the game really died as a spectacle as Arlesey became more and more tired as the half went on

The Crows finished the game in style with two very late identical goals when right wing raids from the lively Tom Malins ended with identical low crosses that were turned home by Graham Tibballs and Jamie Morriss in front of the 144 people - the highest league crowd of the season.

Attfield said: "Everything really worked well for us today. Being able to rest so many players and give some others limited match play and win the game by the margin we did was the perfect scenario.

"After our draw at Amersham and loss at Harpenden we have had two excellent results (including the 4-0 win against Ampthill on Thursday) and at this stage of the season we just need to keep chipping away and getting whatever extra points we can.

"The schedule is tough for us and it will undoubtedly affect some performances. The Kings Langley game will be a fourth in seven days for the lads but we are 15 points ahead of third placed Hatfield Town right now and that is a huge margin with just eight games to go."

Royston: Gibson, Apostolos, Stephens, Roach, Cain (Endacott), De Lacy (Edwards), Jackson, Malins, Hammond (Pring), Tibballs, Morriss. Unused subs: Robins, Young.