Croydon 3-0 Slade Green

Slade Green’s hopes of getting anything from this game evaporated inside the opening six minutes of the second half as high flying Croydon pounced with two quick fire goals at the Croydon Sports Arena on Saturday, writes Robert Smith.

Green made a disastrous start to the game falling behind with just four minutes on then clock when a slick four man move caught the Green defence flat footed and resulted in Billy Warner finding the net.

Warner could have struck again on the 20 minute mark when he connected with a Sam Warner cross only for his header to drift wide.

To be fair to the visitors they did manage to match their hosts possession wise during the first half. Frank Sawyer did well to set up Ricky Bennett from the left only for the veteran striker to skew his effort way off target. Bennett then saw his cross headed by a Croydon defender past his own keeper only for Sawyer to guide his angled shot the wrong side of the net.

Instantly Croydon broke away and Billy Warner found himself with just keeper Ciro Donadio to beat only to blaze his effort over the bar.

The second period was just three minutes old when the home side doubled their lead as Warner made space on the left before converting his second goal and two minutes later it was 3-0 as Tim Murdoch cut in from the right and fired home.

Green keeper Donadio then did well to thwart Marc Whiteman tipping his effort away and then did exceptionally well to deny Danny Bennett whose follow up effort was blocked on the line by Lee Barber.

Green had to wait for the introduction of substitute John Paul McKey before producing their first and only second half shot on target and his stinging strike drew a good save from Danny Harwood.

Mckey was again heavily involved in the very last minute when instead of going for goal himself he instead played the ball towards Nick Munshill at the far post and after he had miscued his shot the ball fell to Sawyer whose effort flashed wide.

Slade Green: Donadio, Murphy, Munshill, Potts (McKey), Heyrettin, Sabatino (Pruce), Barber, Malyon, Bennett, Sawyer, Sesay (Kamara). Subs: Baines, Craven