Town prove to strong for the yellows

Runcorn Town returned to the top of the North West Counties League for the first time since last August after a 4-1 victory over Ashton Athletic.

Ashton Athletic rocked Runcorn early on with ex-Rochdale player Helio Andre opening the scoring on nine minutes, his shot across goal deflecting off the unfortunate Danny Dalton who could do little but deflect the shot into Karl Wills' net.

The home side were level though within 15 minutes with Matty Dooling scoring his first goal for the club, Stuart Wellstead delivered a cross to find Dooling who had raced from his defensive position, and he scored at the second attempt after the keeper made an outstanding save from his initial header.

A minute before the break Town went ahead through the in-form Paul Shanley, he beat the offside trap and lobbed the keeper. This goal proved to be the turning point of the game, it allowed Runcorn a foot hold in a game they had been second best in for the majority of the first half.

Some needless overplaying in the wrong area's allowed Runcorn's Shanley to grab a third goal after 69 minutes that put the game beyond Ashton's reach, the midfielder with a superb shot past the keeper that gave him no chance to take his tally for the season to 12 a very impressive tally for a mid-field player.

Two minutes later Wellstead completed the scoring, advancing on goal and knocking it past the oncoming keeper to score.

Although the scoreline looks like we took a bit of a beating, the display was a million times better than saturday and the lads can hold there heads up high and look forward to a trip to Silsden FC on Saturday.