Sevenoaks Town swept aside a very poor Rochester United on Wednesday evening, scoring six goals without reply.
Sevenoaks started the match cautiously, and not surprising either, considering they hadn’t played a competitive game for nearly three weeks due to the adverse weather and failed generators. Although they did manage to play a friendly last Saturday against Bostik Premier side Leatherhead FC, losing narrowly 3-2 at the Bourne Stadium.
Sevenoaks seemed to have some ‘match day’ nerves and some awful passing gave the home side a little bit more possession than they deserved, however that was soon put to bed when Frankie Sawyer popped up on 10 minutes to put Sevenoaks 1-0 up.
Rochester are bottom of the Southern Counties East Football Premier League, and you could see why that is, but Sevenoaks did not help themselves as they continued to give away possession with several loose passes. It wasn’t until the 37th minute that Sevenoaks started to carve open the Rochester defence. In the short space of six minutes they scored four more goals, one of which was shamefully disallowed for offside, despite a defender standing on the line.
The second goal of the match began with some great work down the right hand side and Brett Ince tapped the ball past the goalkeeper inside the five-yard box. A minute later, Kenny Pogue rose to head home the third goal of the evening after more great attacking down the right flank.
Sevenoaks had certainly found their rhythm, every pass had a purpose and every pass found a blue shirt. Sawyer scored his second goal of the game and Town’s fourth on 41 minutes after another cross from the right was met at the backpost with a delightful side foot back across the goal, fooling all defenders and the goalkeeper. 0-4 at the break.
The second half started slowly, Rochester were obviously told at halftime to get in the game more, however Sevenoaks struck again with Pogue carving out his second of the match after controlling the ball on his chest before striking it home at the near post.
The Town then made some wholesale changes at this point in the match and new signing Osman Proni got the nod along with Joshua Froggatt and Orlando Smith. Two minutes later and Sevenoaks had their sixth and a well deserved hat-trick for Sawyer.
Rochester managed just the one shot on target, coming in the 81st minute. Now that might be the reason they are bottom of the league, but you can’t fault Sevenoaks’ determination and guile. They thoroughly deserved all three points and take another giant step towards the championship.
Sevenoaks now move four points clear of second placed Crowborough Athletic with a game in hand. The most impressive stat being their +40 goal difference, and having only conceded 17 goals all season, that’s just 0.68 goals per game.
They play Hollands & Blair on Saturday afternoon at The Bourne Stadium, kick off is at 3.00pm.
