By Brian Bennett | Photo: Ian Brodie

Ben Harmison scored a ‘complete’ hat trick – his second treble of the season – for Ashington in the 6-0 rout over Tow Law on Tuesday night then said that the win was the key feature.

The skipper – who netted with a header followed by one with either foot – took his tally of goals in all competitions for the season to 22 and commented afterwards: “I like scoring and it was nice to get a hat-trick but the win was the key thing. Tow Law is a hard place to come to but I thought the lads were brilliant and it was probably one of our best performances of the season. We didn’t give them (Tow Law) time to get set with our energy in the final third as we pressed everything and won the ball back. We were trying to be a bit more direct so it was a case of hitting the two big lads up front early – Scott Heslop and myself – and to try to get balls into the box. We did that all night and we were quite happy that if we got chances we would put them away.”

He continued: “Our link up play was better but it’s easy to do that when you have got willing runners which we had throughout. They gave us energy as they ran past the forwards from midfield – players like Jordan Summerly, Craig Spooner, Ben Sampson and Dean Briggs. From my point of view, it’s nice when I can sometimes ‘drop in’ and flick the ball on or hold it up and play it them through for them. The lads showed hunger and desire to get forward and people got their rewards – like Karl Ross near the end. He popped up and scored and you’re not going to do that unless you get into the box.” He concluded: “To score six up here at Tow Law is a great effort from the lads – and hopefully it’ll be a massive confidence booster for us ahead of Saturday’s game at Bishop Auckland.”