| Simon Austin produced an early Christmas present for Maidstone United fans as he celebrated his return to the starting line up by scoring twice and setting up the other goal.
But Austin was not the only player who shone for The Stones for this was a cracker of a performance from the away side as Alan Walker remarked after the game. He said: “I think that was arguably our best performance of the season. All of the players were at it and they did their jobs very well. Unsurprisingly we are delighted with the result and I think we could scored more goals as we played some great football.”
Right from the outset Maidstone seemed to be the more eager of the two sides to get forward and with just 3 minutes played, Nick Hegley’s effort was ruled out as Simon Austin was adjudged to be offside.
Then with 7 minutes on the clock, Ryan Royston’s long ball was chased by Lynden Rowland and despite the attention of Kingstonian’s keeper Luke Garrard, Rowland managed to get the ball into the area but his resultant overhead kicked shot was scuffed off the line by former Beckenham Town player Asher Hudson.
Errison Ahwan then headed wide for The Stones with 20 minutes gone but two minutes later, Maidstone finally got the goal that their dominance had deserved. Aaron Lacy’s cross from the right hand side pinged around the box and Rowland’s shot was blocked but the ball only came out as far as Austin and he dispatched his shot with aplomb, sending it low into the corner of the net.
With 32 minutes played, Kingstonian enjoyed a rare attack which saw Hudson run down the right before sending a deep cross into The Stones’ box. There was no home player able to reach the ball and so Nathan Paul sent an excellent long clearance out of defence to Austin. Austin did well to win the header and turn to run onto the ball before delivering a superb low cross into Nick Hegley who could not miss from close range.
However, despite a poor first half showing, The K’s nearly pulled a goal back 6 minutes from half time when Martyn Lee’s shot from the edge of the area appeared to be heading for the bottom right hand corner of the net before Pat Mullin intervened with a fabulous save to tip the ball onto the post.
Kingstonian’s captain Julian Sills then headed over when well placed following Lee’s free-kick and within minutes, Maidstone had added a third goal. Once more, the opportunity arose from an attack down the right and yet again, the player on the end of the strike was Austin.
Unsurprisingly the K’s emerged from the break a better side but despite the fact that they enjoyed more possession they in fact created very little chances on goal. Their misery was then compounded on 76 minutes when substitute Tommy Moorhouse clearly forgot it was the season of goodwill and ploughed into Paul with an awful challenge for which he was presented with a straight red card.
<
< < Back to match reports index
|
