Baffins Milton Rovers striker Rudi Blankson finally flourishing as a starter and stars again in Amesbury victory

The Baffins goal ace has really stepped up in the absence of star striker Jason Parish, taking his streak to 12 goals in his past nine outings for Shaun Wilkinson' s side - and he now has 13 for the season.

Since Parish sustained a hamstring injury in the defeat to Hartley Wintney in the Hampshire Senior Cup last month - the forward remains sidelined - Blankson has flourished.

In the nine games Parish has currently missed, Blankson has started seven of those matches and netted 10 times, while he has bagged two in two substitute appearances in that run.

Wilkinson revealed he persuaded the goal ace to stay at Baffins following a summer approach from a fellow Wessex Premier side.

The Baffins boss told how he spoke with Blankson about making more of an impact as a starter - and he is now delivering. Wilkinson said: ‘I think Rudi is different class, I couldn’t be happier with Rudi. He’s got 13 goals already in 10 starts. Rudi hasn’t really had the starts he would have wanted.

‘This is what I say about Rudi, obviously a club came in for him in the summer and we managed to talk him around to stay here, he’s unbelievable at coming off the bench.

‘I’ve said to him he needed to make that impact from the start of the game rather than for the 20 or 30 minutes he’s coming off the bench.

‘To his credit, he got a hat-trick (at Amesbury) and he could have got a couple more. He’s just sharp in and around the box. Once he faces players up with their back towards goal that’s when he’s at his most dangerous.’

Blankson struck on five and 27 minutes to put Baffins two goals to the good, although George Plank fired a penalty past teenage goalkeeper Bailey Neil just past the half-hour mark after Ed Sanders had been penalised for a foul in the area.

Free-scoring Blankson completed a 40-minute hat-trick minutes before the break to take his tally to 13 for the season and restoring the visitors' two-goal advantage.

Once again Amesbury pulled a goal back, this time through Zack Pickett, but George Britton struck with a little more than 10 minutes left to round off the 4-2 victory.

But despite the success, Wilkinson was not overly impressed with his side's efforts as they moved back up to second in the table.

He said: ‘It wasn’t a very good game, to be honest. I was pretty bored, to be honest, it’s the worst game of football I’ve seen for a long time.

‘The main thing, we had no Konrad (Szymaniak), we had no Oscar Johnston, no Parish (Jason), no Scutt (Tommy) and no Alex Przespolewski, so you’re looking at four or five starters out of your team.’