Paulton stunned by three goal first half

Three goals in just over half an hour were enough to make sure of the points, and little of note occurred thereafter on another chilly evening at Bulpit Lane as we moved back into a play-off position, the close-run battle for the top places looks likely to continue until the end of the season, with a midweek trip to King’s Lynn almost certainly our toughest task ahead.
The game started sensationally when Alan O’Brien received the ball from the kick-off, raced down the wing and completely deceived keeper Ben John with his cross-shot to give us the lead after only 30 seconds. Boosted by this start, we continued to attack and made it 2-0 in the 7th. minute, Nat Jarvis driving a low shot into the net despite the presence of a number of defenders, and we went close twice more as we were in complete command, lowly Paulton being overwhelmed even though they have produced some excellent results recently.
After 31 minutes, it was 3-0 Nat Jarvis again applying the finishing touch and a rout looked likely to be on the cards. However, the Rovers began to compete successfully for every ball, whilst we seemed satisfied with our commanding lead and halftime came with no further goals.
With the slope in their favour , the visitors battled on gamely and there were few goal-scoring chances, although, late in the game John pulled off a marvellous save to deny Ian Herring, but the skipper soon limped painfully off. Both sides used all three subs as the game drifted away into a midfield battle, but Paulton gained a consolation goal in the last minute as we defended poorly, but it was far too late to affect the result and the three pointssaw us back up to 5th. place with everything still to play for.
Team; Strudley, Horgan, Tyler, Boardman, Rusby, Herring(John), Clark(Preen), Jones , Jarvis,, Brown, O’Brien( Goodger) Subs; Draycott , Berry -Hargreaves.