Ruthless Raiders C a class apart

Raiders C went into the game off the back off two successive defeats and were looking for their first points of the season, but with only 11 players available, including stand-in goalkeeper Adam Leveson, nobody expected such a one-sided encounter against Boca Jewniors.

Within minutes of the game starting Joel Levitt picked up an injury but continued to play on at left midfield whilst Boca looked to press home an advantage against a depleted Raiders side.

Raiders, buoyed by a strong midfield line up, pushed forward with Sher skipping past five challenges to round a fantastic move and open his account for the season.

Not long after, Boca fashioned an equaliser through good play in the six-yard box to unpick the Raiders defence.

Raiders rallied though and thought they had forced home their second only for a questionable offside decision to prove Boca’s saviour. Nonetheless the second did come shortly before half-time with Stein putting Raiders 2-1 up.

After the break the floodgates opened for Boca and Raiders ran riot with two goals in the first 10 minutes from Alex Elf and Stein again.

Raiders lost key centre back Jake Yudelowitz to injury on 70 minutes to move down to 10 men for the last 20 but it didn’t phase a defence excellently marshalled by Josh Daniels. NLR continued to push for more goals with Elf adding his second with a diving header, Stein completing his hat-trick with a quick-fire double and the magnificent Sherr also completing a well deserve hat-trick.

Captain for the week Rob Samuelson finished the scoring off with lovely finish for Raiders ninth goal in a thoroughly one-sided victory.

NLR co-boss Sam Rose told JC Sport: "After two difficult games to start the season off, we really got into our stride against Boca. Our defence was solid at the back as the game continued to open up with us carving numerous opportunities.

"We scored some glorious goals in quick succession coming and showed our superiority across all aspects of the pitch. It was a really fantastic performance from the whole team."

Boca joint-manager Elliott Grant told JC Sport: "We said you would see goals but didn't quite think this many and let alone the amount against us. This was a tale of two halves. The first 40 minutes we played very well and didn't let our heads drop even going 1-0 down.

"At half-time we went in 2-1 down, injury time just kept increasing. We came out in the second half and until 60 minutes we battled away winning balls in the air and having some good strikes on target. Then the fitness dropped and 80 per cent of our team were struggling and Raiders could see and scored a plethora of goals in quick succession. The last 10 minutes for us were terrible and we conceded five in that time.

"I'm not sure what positives we can take from this but we do know we need to work on our fitness and it's a long season ahead so if your going to lose big then lose big early and we did. We have two weeks till the next league game and we will put some serious effort into recruitment too!"