Greenalls Padgate St Oswalds 3 Denton Town 0

GREENALLS ran away 3-0 winners courtesy of a Robbie Hanley hat-trick, against Cheshire League Division One strugglers Denton.

Greenalls controlled the match from kick-off and had a chance early on when the ball got played through to inter-league striker Craig Hoyland but his effort ended over the crossbar.

Hanley had the next chance of the game, a smart pass through the midfield found him on the edge of the box but his shot went just wide from 20 yards out.

The troublesome two were at it again and after 35 minutes broke the deadlock.

Hoyland played the ball over the top from the right hand side finding Hanley inside the box who poked the ball around the keeper into the bottom right corner.

Whatever was said at the half time interval by the Denton manager seemed to have worked as they came out after the break looking like a different team.

An early chance fell to captain Alan Hamlet but Greenalls keeper Craig Clare was on duty to deny the frontman.

Minutes later another chance fell to Ibrahimovic look-alike Ashley Harrison with a great chance panicking Clare, but drifted just wide of the right-hand post.

The game was put beyond Denton when Hanley got his second of the game after 88 minutes of play.

Substitute Lee Vaughan played a fantastic pass, splitting the defence, to Hanley who scored from a narrow angle inside the box.

Hanley completed his hat-trick deep into injury time.

Gareth Johns played the ball in from the left to Hanley who smartly turned his defender and coolly finished across the goalkeeper rounding off a resilient performance for Greenalls.

It was not Greenalls’ most impressive performance, as they still looked rusty in places, but manager Dave Bush will no doubt be happy with the clean sheet and the result which they duly deserved.

Manager Dave Bush said: "We can certainly play far better than we did.

“We controlled the game well but lacked our usual attacking threat. That said, Robbie had four chances all game and put three away.

“We'll take that.

“We defended very well too, Craig Clare was faultless, as was the defence in front of him, and Lee and Glen were solid and very disciplined in front of them.

“All in all quite pleasing but there's definitely a lot of room for improvement if we want to be putting in performances that we are capable of."

Team: Craig Clare, Paul Dobson, Gareth Johns, Alex Hardman, Jack Hynes, Danny Topping, Lee Hughes, Glen Percival, Robbie Hanley, Craig Hoyland, Chris Rogers.

Subs: Lee Vaughan, Joe Woods, Ian Whitfield.