Eastwood Town 1 Altrincham 6 (From Messenger Newspapers)

Eastwood Town 1 Altrincham 6

12:30pm Monday 23rd April 2012 in Alty FC news

WITHOUT the injured Nicky Clee and the ill Kieran Walmsley, Altrincham coasted to victory against the already relegated Nottinghamshire side on Saturday.

Eastwood's financial difficulties meant that they had been forced to field a team of young players for much of the season.

But despite The Badgers' difficulties, they had the better early openings, with Stuart Coburn having to made a couple of smart saves and another Eastwood effort hitting the sidenetting.

It took 34 minutes for Altrincham to assert themselves, when Scott Phelan scored with a low drive. That opened the floodgates and three more goals followed in the next 15 minutes. Alty doubled their lead from the penalty spot, when Damian Reeves netted his 44th league goal of the campaign after James Lawrie Had been tripped in the box.

And, with the game into first-half injury time, Leighton McGivern took advantage of a loose ball to drive a shot past the Eastwood keeper, Andrew. Four minutes after the interval Phelan scored again as he capitalised on Duncan Watmore's shot, which Andrew had spilt into his path. 18 year-old Watmore was making his first start for Alty and gave a good account of himself.

Eastwood then had their best spell of the game but Lawrie broke away and fed McGivern up the left flank. The former Vauxhall Motors' striker cut in, rounded the keeper and netted his second goal of the afternoon, with 12 minutes remaining.

The Robins had not kept a clean sheet in any of the 28 games in all competitions since they had beaten Eastwood 2-0 at Moss Lane back on Bonfire Night. And they again let in a goal in this match as substitute Nelson Burgess scored following a corner in the 82nd minute.

However, McGivern, who starts a suspension next week, completed his hat-trick as the game went into injury time. He converted a feed from substitute John Miles to round off Alty's second 6-1 away win of the season. Results elsewhere meant that Altrincham will finish in eighth place whatever happens in their final game, next Saturday, at home to play-off chasers Gainsborough Trinity (3pm) Altrincham : Coburn, Densmore (capt), Smart, Richman, Flynn, Broomes, Watmore, Phelan, McGivern, Reeves, Lawrie. Subs C. Lynch, M.Lynch, Miles, Twiss, Reid