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We started brightly with a high tempo and good, sharp passing football. The surface had a light covering of dew allowing us to move the ball about swiftly and we retained possession well as we probed the opposition defences. It wasn't to be long before we breached them. A neat attacking move was ended when Fletcher slid the ball into the breaking Adam Kay, who ghosted through the defence and finished well down low to the keepers left.
Our good play saw us create more chances with Fletcher especially unlucky when the keeper denied him one-on-one. But the game seemed to grind to a half following a stoppage when a visiting player landed heavily in the centre circle and the ref chose to halt proceedings. He was fit to continue but the delay had seemingly broken our flow and things became a little scrappy for 20 minutes or so.
On the half hour mark PNE had a good opportunity to draw level. There were bodies in our box and a shot was fired in through the crowd, but Stef Ritchie saved to his left. The ball bounced back into the crowd and another shot came in but was blocked by a defender before a third, wilder effort nearly hit the corner flag.
Before half time we could have snatched a second with McDonald rising unopposed to head at goal, but he'll be disappointed he couldn't add to his tally.
The 2nd half started a little slowly but things started to get a little tasty as some hard challenges started to fly around. The PNE right back was booked for a kung-fu style tackle on Dean Stott. Stott himself had just strongly tackled his opposite number and could himself have been pulled up. The lad on the receiving end of his challenge had to leave the field and be replaced.
We extended our lead on the hour mark with the best move of the match. Alex-Ray Harvey picked up a loose ball on the half way line and moved out to the wing, while advancing up the pitch. He cut back inside and attacked the box slipping the ball to Kay, who then passed it out to Turner on the left. He spotted the run of McDonald and fired in a low cross to the front post, but the covering defender blocked the diminutive forwards attempt. The ball however rolled out to Hoskin, steaming in to the box and he smashed a piledriver past the keeper, aided by a slight deflection.
The visitors made a tactical change in an attempt to get back into the game. They brought on a left back and removed a midfielder, reshuffling their pack and it paid almost instant dividends. The left back found himself on the end of a cross field ball 20 yards out and fired across Ritchie into the far corner, under real pressure from McDonald.
We constructed another flowing move which should have sealed it for us. Kay received the ball with his back to goal and slipped a killer pass through a static defence, finding McDonald, and his cross was met by the head of Turner. The ball though hit the underside of the bar and bounced down and out. The fans at that end said it had crossed the line but, in truth, there was little by way of protest from our boys.
Kay could have had a second for himself shortly after but just failed to make contact with the goal at his mercy. He did have a hand in the final goal of the day though as he again found McDonald on the wing. This time the youngster drilled in a low cross to the front post and just as the keeper looked to get down and gather Turner appeared to stab past him for a well deserved goal.
We made a couple of late changes with the return from injury of James Craggs a plus point. Harvey did hobble off though so we will be left hoping his injury is not too serious.
Team:- Stef Ritchie, Ben Hoskin, Thomas Bradley, Dan Brown, Chris Lynch, Dean Stott, Alex-Ray Harvey (Nik Kudiersky), Adam Kay, Wes Fletcher (James Craggs), Alex McDonald, Rob Turner. Subs not used:- Jon Sergeant, Matt Lomas.