Clanfield debutant Smalley makes incredible start to life in the Hampshire Premier League

Adam Smalley struck a quickfire hat-trick on his Hampshire Premier League debut for Clanfield against Sway at Westleigh Park.

The 18-year-old Portsmouth College student fired a five minute hat-trick as Clanfield equalled their highest margin of victory in a HPL encounter.

Smalley – who had only trained with his new colleagues once prior to the game - struck in the 10th, 12th and 15th minutes as Lee Blakely’s new-look side hammered lowly Sway 10-1 on the artificial surface at Westleigh Park.

James Barker and Oli Amos extended the lead to 5-0 at half-time.

Owen Milne made it six three minutes into the second half before Clanfield netted three more in the space of four minutes around the hour mark.

Kian Hampshire, Will Martin and sub Chad Musselwhite - the latter making his debut - all joined in the spree.

With 27 minutes remaining, it seemed a repeat of the previous week’s thrashing by Colden Common - Sway conceded 14 goals in that defeat - was on the cards.

But Clanfield only netted one more, through Barker, before the New Forest side grabbed a late consolation.

Only four of the XI who had lined up against Paulsgrove a fortnight earlier started against Sway.

They were Barker, Milne, Chris Waterson and Hampshire.

Blakely had brought in five University of Portsmouth students at Infinity the previous week, and against Sway he started Ash Wright in goal as well as handing Smalley his first start up front in place of Mauro Morais, who was on the bench for the first time this season.

Musselwhite, meanwhile, is another University of Portsmouth student.

‘We knew Sway haven’t had the best results, but we still had to go out and approach the game in the right manner,’ said Blakely.

‘That’s the good thing about bringing in all the new lads - they want to keep their foot on the gas at all times, they don’t get complacent.

‘As I’ve said, it was a gamble but we’d lost six out of eight games and so something had to change.’

It was Clanfield’s biggest HPL win since they triumphed 10-1 at Stockbridge in February 2016 with goals from Darren Ferguson (4), Matthew Rowland (4), Amos and Cameron Palin.

Prior to that, they hammered Fleetlands 11-4 in December 2013 with Amos again on target.

Elliot Sills (4) and Harry Potter (3) led that rout with Dan Broad (2) and Phil Page also scoring.

Clanfield return to Stockbridge this Wednesday in their last HPL Senior Division game prior to lockdown.