Burton 3 Gravesend & Northfleet 0

MANAGER Andy Ford was at a loss to explain Gravesend’s poor performance as Burton romped to their first home and away win double in the Nationwide Conference on Saturday.

After their raising their game to give Notts County a fright eight days earlier in the FA Cup, the Fleet failed lamentably to reproduce the qualities shown in that performance against Burton.

A downcast Ford admitted: “We weren't at the races and I'm disappointed with the performance. We got beaten by the better team. There are a few of our players who made wrong decisions a lot of the time during the afternoon.

“Burton were a lot quicker out of the traps at the start, but our away form has been good recently. We set ourselves out the way we did at Chester and Tamworth, where we came away with good results.

“I don't know the reasons why we were so poor today. I thought we defended well in the first half but we couldn’t get anything going when we moved forward.”

Burton, who, like the Fleet, suffered an FA Cup knockout a week earlier, showed no signs of a hangover and delighted player-manager Nigel Clough said: “In the end we could have scored six.

“We were worried at half time that, having played so well for 45 minutes, we hadn’t scored. The early goal in the second half settled us and we went on to dominate.

“That performance was right up there with any from us this season.”

Lee Colkin broke the deadlock with a goal 13 seconds into the second half. Robbie Talbot made it 2-0 in the 59th minute before Darren Stride unleashed 20-yard drive in the 70th minute to seal victory.

Steve Perkins went closest to reducing the arrears for the Fleet with a shot that landed on the top of the net.

After a brief respite, the Fleet have been dragged back into the relegation dogfight at the foot of the Conference and have the same number of points as third from bottom Leigh who sprung a huge surprise by winning at Dagenham & Redbridge.

Gravesend: Wilkerson; Lee, Shearer, Moore, Gibbs; Protheroe, Drury , McKimm, Walshe; Haworth, Perkins. Substitutions: Abbey for Drury 53 mins, Duku for Moore (74 mins). Not used: O'Reilly, Evans, Owen.

Attendance: 1,403.