North West Counties League Division One South

St Martins 2

New Mills 6

A STARRING performance from Remeece Brown on his New Mills debut helped his side to a huge victory over north Shropshire opponents St Martins.

The Saints started the game in the best possible way when Shawn Melusi opened the scoring after 97 seconds.

However, three goals for the visitors before half-time had the Saints on the back foot.

An identical second half saw an early goal by Melusi followed by a trio of goals for New Mills, all scored by Brown.

St Martins came into the game on the back of a third straight defeat, but started well when New Mills’ Tom Russell played a pass too short which was intercepted and sent forward to Melusi who rounded off a good counter-attacking move with a header from six yards out.

The Saints could only hold onto their lead for 15 minutes however – Ben Bevan was brought down in the penalty area by Jack Bates which was deemed a foul by the referee.

Joe Rothwell stepped up and fired the resulting spot kick into the top left-hand corner.

After a further 15 minutes, the visitors doubled their tally to go a goal ahead. Georgi Whyment picked the ball up off Brown’s first touch and ran through to fire home from 12 yards out.

New Mills added a third before the break through Liam Delaney who headed a corner past George Austin.

After the break, Melusi pulled a goal back after 12 minutes of play when a good cross by George Durrell held up nicely for Melusi who headed home from six yards out.

Any hope of a comeback was thwarted again after a minute when Brown got the first of his three goals with a long-range effort which flew past Austin.

Brown had his second two minutes later by curling an audacious left-foot effort from 30 yards into the top corner.

He rounded off his hat-trick five minutes later when the visitors were awarded their second penalty of the afternoon – Brown stepped up and made no mistake.

The Saints finished the afternoon with 10 men after Durrell’s tackle on Adam Cooper lead to his dismissal.

St Martins were scheduled to face Bridgnorth Town last night in the Shropshire Cup semi-final. They take on FC Oswestry Town in their next league fixture on Tuesday, April 9 (7.45pm).