RAMSBOTTOM continued their roller-coaster season with a convincing 4-1 demolition of Atherton Collieries.
Although Atherton are sitting in the lower echelons of the North West Counties Division One, this was a must win match for Vince Overson's men with a tough run-in against Clitheroe, Mossley and Stone Dominoes.
The squad was once again stretched to the limit with the unavailability of several key players.
After a quiet opening with both sides struggling to adapt to the difficult playing surface, the match was brought to life on 11 minutes when Lee Buggie found himself in acres of space but his rising shot was parried away to safety by Paul Masher.
Then, from 30 yards, Iain Dyson chipped the ball towards the danger zone and, to everyone's amazement, it looped into the top corner.
The Rams' failure to deal with set pieces, which has haunted them all season, once again caused problems when a poor clearance from a deep corner found centre back Lee Bowles and his dipping volley beat the outstretched hand of Paul Eatock.
Atherton almost took the lead on 54 minutes when good work from Mark Jones set up a glorious chance for Steve Hughes, but his powerful strike from the edge of the box was superbly tipped over by Eatock for the first of a number of key saves.
Robbie Smith sent the travelling fans into raptures when his mis-hit cross found a leaping Dyson and his flicked header found its way beyond the forlorn dive of Masher and into the bottom corner.
Rams ended the match the stronger and increased the gap on 88 minutes when Dyson controlled Chris Clark's through ball, charged through the defence unchallenged and calmly slotted the ball underneath Masher to complete a well-deserved hat-trick.
In the dying seconds, the scoreline was extended to 1-4 when the referee awarded the Rams a penalty and Chris Clark stepped up to send Masher the wrong way.
ATHERTON COLLS ...1
RAMSBOTTOM ...4
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