Hayes fell victim to Bognor’s somewhat scandalous decision to get the originally scheduled fixture cancelled, due to a couple of players on futsal duty, by putting on a horror show at Nyewood Lane on Tuesday evening.

The Rocks hit the Missioners early and raced into a two goal lead within 13 minutes leaving the travelling fans wondering if they had come to the Rock(y) horror show.

The first breach of the Hayes goal came in the seventh minute, having conceded a corner on the right side, the defence went missing as home skipper Stuart Tuck was allowed a free header which he duly planted past Kevin Davies.

Five minutes later Davies pulled off a good save from Scott Chamberlain who had beaten off two challenges before shooting for goal. The respite lasted less than sixty seconds however, Ben Johnson raced away on the left side before crossing low and hard whereby Ben Watson arrived to beat Davies from close range.

On twenty minutes we finally got off the coach and pulled ourselves back into the game, Liam Feeney found some space on the left, his low cross was deliberately left by Ryan Ashe and Daniel Dyer collected the ball at the far post to fire past Craig Stoner in the Rocks goal.

This goal stirred the Missioners and this led to our only period of domination in the match. Stafforde Palmer saw an angled drive from the edge of the area held by Stoner and minutes later the striker had the ball in the net after Stoner had parried an Ashe volley but he was denied by the raising of the assistants flag for offside.

Michael Bartley was inches away meeting a Palmer cross and at the other end Watson did well to control a cross before shooting on the turn but he did not trouble Davies as the effort went side of the target.

As the game entered stoppage time the Missioners received the proverbial kick in the nuts when Gilbert Nuako and Feeney combined well on the left with the latter picking out Dyer who this time fired just the wrong side of the upright, almost immediately however the home side raced forwards and extended their lead as the ball was whipped in from the right for Luke Nightingale to arrive and tap in from close range with the central defence again missing in action.

Hayes never recovered from this blow and the home side took charge early in the second period taking just three minutes to add a fourth. Davies made a superb save to deny Nightingale as he pushed a drive over the bar, sadly the resultant corner saw two defenders attempt to get the ball clear with neither achieving success and this enabled Tuck to ram the ball past Davies from eight yards.

With the Rocks still in the ascendancy but not really troubling Davies we created a couple of half chances, Ashe saw a volley held by Stoner and the tireless Palmer cut in from the left only for Stoner to save with his legs.

Bognor netted a fifth with twenty minutes remaining and this was really the last meaningful action of the game, a free-kick was fired past the wall but struck a Bognor player, as luck would have it for the home side, that player Ben Watson picked up the loose ball and fired past Davies.

Report by Kevin Watts.