ALRESFORD Town secretary Keith Curtis felt Saturday’s heavy rain “did not detract from the performance of either side” in their 4-1 Sydenhams Premier win over Bournemouth Poppies.

But beaten Poppies boss Ken Vaughan begged to differ, saying: “The game should never have been played in the conditions, but they adapted a lot better than we did.

“As the pitch cut up, the boys were trying to play football on their backsides. Alresford worked hard for what they got and we didn’t work hard enough. It could have been ten or 12.”

Even without the midfield strength of Simon Everett and Harry Draycott, Alresford had too much in the tank for their visitors.

Poppies fell behind on ten minutes when Tom Riddell broke down the right and set up Dan Strange for a close-range finish.

Alresford continued to press and increased their lead when Riddell ran onto Jack Hoey’s long, crossfield pass and slipped the ball coolly past ’keeper Kenny Vaughan with 25 minutes gone.

Poppies briefly came back into after the break as half-time sub Taylor Leonard scored on his debut – his low, driven cross fumbled in by ’keeper Gary Morrison who had got the nod ahead of Jarid Hixon. But the Magpies were quickly back into the ascendancy with Dan Fox producing a neat, close-range finish on 64 minutes and Andrew Turner wrapping things up shortly after coming off the bench.

That wasn’t the end of the action, however, with Fox and Carter both hitting the Poppies bar and Turner denied a second by Vaughan before Morrison kept out Sam Pekun at the other end. Alresford, 14th, are tonight due to visit ninth-placed Folland Sports whose home game with Horndean was rained off.