The honeymoon period is definitely over for boss Steve Castle after his Royston Town side were thumped 6-1 in the league away to Rugby Town.

The speedy Rugby forwards tore through the slow makeshift back-line and destroyed the Crows with impressive, clinical finishing.

Too many of the Royston players chose to have their poorest games for weeks. Ryan Ingrey ran his proverbial socks off to get his team moving from midfield but the inability of his team-mates to string three passes together left the Crows with no real width options, despite swapping flanks mid-half.

Rugby’s no nonsense defensive modus operandi nullified Craig Hammond and Kaan Fehmi up top and despite the first half being mainly a scrappy even tussle, this gave them no time to create any meaningful chances on goal.

The difference in the first half was Seb Lake-Gaskin who twice showed his deadly pace and exposed Royston’s soft under-belly with his speed and powerful direct running being matched by two superb strikes on goal.

The second half saw three sending-offs from an arguably over-zealous referee who felt an early tackle by Nathan Haines was worthy of a straight red card and Castle must have felt briefly that the game was back on.

He sent on top-scorer Rob Mason, replacing the ineffective Murray, to hopefully swing the match.

Unfortunately it did not happen as the 10-man Rugby team – spear-headed superbly by David Kolodynski – got the important third goal on 62 minutes with Kolodynski scoring from a Lake-Gaskin cross.

Fehmi failed to control his frustration and saw a straight red card for raising his hands to an opponent and Royston visibly capitulated with Rugby adding two more goals courtesy of Jamie Towers and Kolodynski.

Lewis Endacott saw red from a similar challenge to that of Haines but surprisingly the Crows managed to score a scant consolation with Reece Dobson’s scuffed shot finding the corner of the goal.

But even then Rugby had the last laugh as Kolodynski completed his second half hat-trick by clinically following up a half-blocked effort to seal a thumping win for the Warwickshire outfit.