Ashton shoot themselves in the foot

Runcorn rounded the week off in fantastic style with a 6-0 demolition of lowly Ashton Athletic.

Today’s opening couldn’t have been any worse for the yellows.Runcorn found themselves in front after 30 seconds today. Tommy Turner latched on to a long Michael Duffy clearance, and while his shot was palmed out by Ashton ‘keeper Hayden Buckley-Smith, the ball hit the retreating Daniel Barnett and trickled over the line for an own goal.

The second arrived after 10 minutes. From wide of his goal, Buckley-Smith’s weak clearance landed at the feet of Matty Atherton. 25-yards out, who connected perfectly with a first time strike to make it 2-0, Ashton should have pulled one back. When Helio Andre rolled the ball into the path of Joseph Fielding it seemed easier to score than miss, but leaning backwards, Fielding blazed over.

Matty Atherton’s deflected shot and Kyle Hamid’s dipping 25-yard effort both brought decent saves out of Buckley-Smith as Runcorn took over once again. Tommy Turner’s thunderbolt just missed the target, before he gained his second assist when he was taken down by Michael Burns in the area. Despite looking straight into a blinding sun, a rather fetching cap helped the linesman spot the obvious infringement and flag for the penalty that the referee had inexplicably waved away. Martin Crowder tucked the spot kick away comfortably.

Runcorn won a corner just before the hour. terrible marking allowed attacker Sean Breen to attack Martin Crowder’s set piece at the near post to head the first of a quick fire hat trick. Before Breen grabbed his second two goals, Lee Hodgkinson fired over in similar fashion to Joseph Fielding in the first period, again after being set up by Helio Andre.

Shaun Mangan received the first yellow card of the game when he fouled Ross McDowell from behind on 64 minutes and from the resulting free kick, the Crowder Breen combination once again undid Ashton to make it 5-0. Breen’s hat trick arrived on 71 minutes, this time after a fantastic left wing cross from Kyle Hamid.