Well worth the Waites

Super Slough produced their best league performance for more than a year to murder Hitchin on Tuesday night.

Paul Waites inspired an excellent all-round team display and Jimmy Brown helped himself to a second half hat-trick, as the Rebels firmly cast aside early season doubts and fears.

Indeed, those who saw the later pre-season games and the weekend reverse at Bromley must have found it hard to believe they were watching the same side.

For the Rebels put the past fortnight's three defeats firmly behind them, determinedly took the game by the scruff of the neck from the first whistle and highlighted their superiority with first class finishing.

Explaining the big improvement, delighted manager Alan Davies said "We attacked far better as a unit, far, far better than we did on Saturday and the front men did far better."

Jimmy Brown certainly lapped up his service to repeat the hat-trick he scored against the Herts side last season and crown the Rebels best league display since the famous fightback at Yeovil at the end of the '85-'86 campaign.

Dennis Powell, free from suspension, made his league debut at right-back, while Keith White was switched to left-back. Gary Woodcraft was ruled out with a swollen foot originally sustained in the Barnet game, so Davies took up an option he'd been strongly considering anyway.

It was White who started the rot with one of his favourite free-kick conversions after 23 minutes. Brown and Jacobs playing midfield traded passes before the striker was fouled by Nugent and the skipper buried a low 20-yarder into the bottom right-hand corner.

Both sides tried to play football and it made for an entertaining opening on a pitch made slippery by the all-day rain. Hitchin played their part in the bright start and equalised three minutes later.

The visitors' defence stopped in the hope of an offside decision, but Payne crossed and Bateman could only strike his clearance against 'keeper Bunting, for Canaries player-manager Alan West to stick the ball home.

Jacobs netted on the half hour, but Waites was adjudged to have been offside. But Waites had already put the skids under the home defenders with a couple of mazy runs and his impudence restored Slough's lead eight minutes before the break.

He was baulked in his tracks by Burke on the edge of the box and just as White shaped up to take the free-kick, Waites took everyone by surprise by quickly popping a shot in the 'keepers left-hand corner.

Sub Mahoney was inches from a second equaliser just before the break, but it was Slough who were on the mark moments after it, as from yet another free-kick, Jimmy Brown rose to nod in White's free-kick for 3-1.

The Rebels, sporting their new away strip of white shirts, blue shorts and red socks, eased off a little for the next 20 minutes , but weren't seriously threatened and in fact, still looked comfortably the better of the two sides.

And a three-goal salvo in the last quarter-of-an-hour merely served to emphasise the gulf between them. First, Waites brilliantly held the ball up in the centre circle before delivering a perfect pass for Brown to race past his marker and clinically shoot past Luff. Then last season's top marksman, when he scored four hat-tricks, completed his first of this, as he headed in Wilson's corner in the 88th minute.

With Hitchin praying for the end, Bateman's long ball found sub Wayne Wanklyn in acres of space and he planted a cross- shot past poor Luff, who had to pick the ball out of the net for the sixth time-in his first game since returning from honeymoon!

"Players haven't been playing to their true form" said Davies, " But now they've set the standard, they've got to keep to it. We've got to do that, week in, week out." It should be a great season if they can manage it.