Mardy 6 Albion Rovers 0

HAVING taken over lone control of the squad while co-coach Ben Bannon takes a break from his duties, Mardy boss Gary Barrel watched on with glee as his side hammered Albion Rovers 6-0 on Saturday.

This was the third time Barrel has overseen a Mardy victory without Bannon's input after taking charge of wins earlier in the campaign including a memorable 3-0 victory at Undy. And with Bannon again taking a step back from coaching, the league-leaders returned to the pitch signalling their dominance of the Gwent County League thanks to a Leon Gilchrist hat-trick.

But Barrel, while delighted with Saturday's performance, has echoed Bannon's call for more commitment and desire from the squad as they look to close in on the league title.

Barrel said: "From my point of view it's about the team being united in spirit and it's no good missing training.

"That applies from the firsts right down to the thirds. If I've only got 13 players to choose from then I have to pull someone up from the seconds and it has a knock-on effect right down the teams.

"We just need to keep pushing on for that Welsh League place. We still have to play Blaenavon in what could be the last game in the season - but we know if we win all our games we'll win the league."

With the heavy wind in Albion's favour in the first half on Saturday, the game had started evenly. The sides matched each other until Gilchrist opened the scoring after 20 minutes, capitalising on a goalkeeping error. That opened the floodgates as Mardy's Adam White, Phillip Melville and Aaron Davies all got on the scoresheet. Gilchrist could have completed his hat-trick before the break, scoring a second and then hitting the bar.

As it was, Mardy were buoyant at half-time with a comfortable 5-0 lead. Barrel added: "In the second half we still put a lot of pressure on them but didn't create the same sort of chances. Wyn Evans hit the bar, while they were really relying on breakaway attacks."

But Gilchrist did pop up to complete his hat-trick, capping off a fine 6-0 win.

This weekend, high-scoring Mardy travel to Newport Corries, confident of another three-point haul.