Northern Senior League

Stonehouse 0 Sharpness 4

SHARPNESS made the short trip to league leaders Stonehouse still missing experienced players Tom Paterson and Gianni Diurno through injury and started the game with the oldest player being James Higgs at 26.

Within five minutes of kick-off, Matt Gardner had the ball in the Stonehouse net only for it to be ruled offside.

This spurred Sharpness on, with Gardner causing all sorts of problems for Stonehouse, and, on 20 minutes, the deadlock was broken when Scott Bennett picked out Gardner in the box to fire home from six yards.

Sharpness doubled their lead 10 minutes later when Jack Higgs squared a ball to Ben John, who managed to crash it home at the second attempt.

The second half started a far different affair with Stonehouse putting pressure on the Sharpness back four but they held firm. The best chance for Stonehouse fell to the league top goalscorer Liam Gale but his shot went wide.

It was against the run of play that Sharpness delivered the killer blow with Gardner again ripping the Stonehouse defence apart.

He was upended by the Stonehouse keeper and Ben John dispatched the penalty.

Subs Dan Turner and Harry Aldrige linked up within five minutes to put the icing on the cake.

Aldridge was set free by Turner to leave him one-on-one with the keeper. He took his chance, blasting the ball into the top corner.