Rihoy rips Saints apart

North 6, St Martin's 3

DAVE RIHOY lived up to the billing as the best player in the Channel Islands with a four-goal haul to sink St Martin's at Northfield on Saturday. The winger has been somewhat out of sorts so far this season, but this was vintage Rihoy as he caused havoc for the Saints defence all afternoon.

All his goals came in the second half.

'I haven't scored for a while,' said Rihoy. 'I haven't been playing well in my opinion but today I enjoyed it and obviously it paid off. I think we realised we didn't have our strongest team out today so we pulled together.'

The North squad had been decimated with the likes of Alex Le Prevost and Glyn Dyer away with the Guernsey under-18 team and Gavin Le Page, Craig Young and Steve Ozanne also unavailable.

They were so short that coach Mick Le Prevost was kitted out in the chocolate-and-blue strip on the sidelines and named as one of the substitutes.

But this seemed to have a galvanising effect on the table-toppers as they were a million times better than when they drew 2-2 with Vale Rec in their last league outing.

'I said to the boys at the start, we have a few missing but not to lose the opportunity to get another three points,' said Le Prevost.

'We deserved to win. We kept pushing forward and tried to get goals.

'I enjoyed it. It was a good game and Dave Rihoy had his best game for us this year. He was superb.

'Hopefully that will be a start for him to keep playing like that week in, week out.'

North scored their first inside two minutes.

Saints' defender Richard Herpe pulled Jon Veron back when the North winger was going for a shot in the area and a penalty was duly given.

Saints keeper Alex Hockey blocked Simon Tostevin's weak low effort but the big striker, who was playing in the midfield due to North's absences, put the rebound away.

The home side's second came 20 minutes later when Hockey was not strong enough with his one-handed dive to Ollie McKenzie's long range shot that skimmed over the muddy surface.

A minute later, referee Ian Drillot was pointing to the penalty spot again, adjudging that Saints captain Kevin Graham had been all over AJ Saunders when going for a high ball.

Saunders took the kick and sent it harmlessly wide.

A couple of minutes later, Saints scored their first of the afternoon, through another penalty.

The ball hit Veron's arm in the area and Chris Mauger had no problems putting the spot-kick away.

Rihoy finally got himself on the scoresheet when he received the ball from Saunders clear on goal and easily put it past Hockey into the net.

Just after the hour mark, Rihoy made it 4-1 when his shot took a wicked deflection to defeat Hockey.

He completed his hat-trick five minutes later with a real cracker.

The island star bombed down the left flank before cutting in to drive a cracking shot into the far corner.

Rihoy got his fourth with another deflected effort, to put the match beyond Saints' grasp.

'I feel they deserved to win but I'm disappointed with the scoreline,' said Graham afterwards.