SDFL division four

Dittisham United 4,

Roselands reserves 1

A cold yet sunny afternoon set the scene for a fantastic Plums performance at Shin­ners Meadow.

The side was somewhat strengthened by the return of many players, including in­fluential forward Sam­my Bruckner, mainstay right-back Jake Blamey.

Also included was recent signing Ciaran Daniels, who was set to make his first start at the Meadow since joining from Stoke Fleming last month.

Ditts were fast out of the blocks and on eight minutes won a corner.

Blamey drilled the ball hard and low and it caused havoc in the Roselands' defence as Joe Kirby saw his near-post touch blocked. The in-form midfielder, however, was on hand as ever to smash the ball into the roof of the net.

The Greens didn't relax on the lead and Marcus Copeman saw a fantastic 45-yard effort miss the post by millimetres after a poor clearance from the Roselands' 'keeper.

Ditts continued to flood forward and it paid off with 19 minutes on the clock.

Colin Rowden played a ball into the feet of LeeRoy Prestage, who swivelled on to his right foot and emphatically placed the ball into the far corner from 20 yards.

It was 3-0 10 minutes later as an expertly executed deep free kick from captain Deano Marino found centre-back Hank Bastin in all kinds of space. His bullet header, however, gave the goalkeeper no chance.

Half time came and went but the Plums could smell their opponents' blood and went for the throat.

Barely five minutes after the game restarted and the Plums found themselves 4-0 to the good.

This time it was Jake Blamey on free kick duty and his deep ball in found Bastin un­marked again.

This time he executed a much more difficult header, which he steered almost effortlessly into the bottom corner.

With the game seemingly won, the Greens decided to sit back and soak up some pressure to save some valuable energy for Saturday's trip to title rivals AFC Staverton.

The only thing to blemish Ditts' score sheet was a deep cross which was nodded in at the far post.

The game petered out towards the end after both teams accepted the inevitability of the result.

Man of the match went to Hank Bastin, but the manager would like to give a special mention to Ciaran Daniels for a solid and composed game on his home debut.