Grays Athletic 0-4 Walthamstow

Stow returned to winning ways with three points on the road thanks to a ruthless first half against Grays Athletic.

With keeper Ashlee Jones unavailable, Roraigh Browne was brought in on a month’s loan from Watford, and he was called into action early on, blocking Charlie Stimson at close-range.

The early chance may have given a Grays who had only won two of their last ten games reason to be optimistic, but Stow soon put an end to that.

With 11 minutes played Bilal Sayoud lofted a ball over the high Grays defence, which Brian Moses ran onto and drilled home with the least of fuss.

That seemed to knock the confidence out of Grays, and Ollie Sotoyinbo went close for Stow, flicking on a the front post and then clipping the bar with a deep cross. He then had a fantastic opportunity when played in by Moses, but sliced his shot wide from the edge of the box.

It didn’t matter though, as Stow were soon 2-0 up through a fantastic bit of play. Moses held the ball up on the edge of the box long enough to calmly square to Kymani Thomas who coolly rolled the ball to Ryan Hervel who smashed a thunderous effort from just inside the box.

Two was soon three as Moses was alert to nip onto a short Grays back pass, round the stranded keeper and slot home from a tight angle.

And on the stroke of half time the points were secured. Ali Njie broke out from defence, and his cross was turned past his own keeper by Michael Finneran, with Moses waiting just behind him for a tap-in.

Moses almost got his hattrick two minutes into the second half, but was well denied by former Stow keeper Danny Sambridge, before the stopper brilliantly tipped a curling effort from Thomas over the bar. Had the shot gone in, it would have been a goal of the season contender for Stow, with some brilliant passing play from Sayoud and Sotoyinbo to set up Thomas from the edge of the box.

As the game petered out, Grays did manage to carve out a couple of chances, a header hitting the bar and Brown saving the follow-up well, but in truth, Stow were not troubled.