Monmouth Town 5 Tata Steel 1

WHEN the visiting goalkeeper is named Man of the Match after letting ion five goals you know that this could have been much, much worse for the Tata Steelmen from Port Talbot.

Matthew Stanton pulled a series of superb stops starting as early as the fifth minute clawing away a Dan Clare downward header followed minutes later with a double stop from MacDonald and Harrhy and he repeated the heroics throughout a ninety minutes when the Kingfishers tore into their erstwhile rivals with abandon.

Two first half headers by Elliot Ford took his tally to 9 for the season and five in two games as Town peppered the goal and played some great football.

That it was just 2 – 0 at half time owed a lot to Stanton and some wayward finishing but it would be churlish to criticise a great performance.

Defensively, Town, sponsored by WyeMedia and Raduni Restaurant, are a better proposition than they have been for a number of years and Clare, Davies, Evans and Alderdice were rarely troubled while Laurie, Lee and Evans once more commanded the midfield areas. Ford, MacDonald and Harrhy are simply on fire.

Town were made to work hard for the third goal turned in by Evans on the hour mark then as it looked like the home team would cap a fine performance with a glut of goals Tata got one back and ruffled some feathers firmly believing they could get something out of the game.

Indeed a shot from distance had the better of Blackburn but it cannoned off the bar and late on Kingfishers man of the match MacDonald put the game out of reach with a solo effort before a last minute strike by Nick Harrhy capped a fine display and sent the Kingfishers into fourth place with games in hand over some of their nearest rivals.

The match was kindly sponsored by Singleton Court with match ball provided by Independent Solutions Ross On Wye Ltd and Monmouth will look to firm up their title challenge with another home game on 23rd November when AFC Porth are the visitors with a 2pm kick off.