Poole Town's December awayday campaign continued with the eagerly awaited clash of the top two sides in the rearranged fixture after the previous encounter was abandoned because of a waterlogged pitch.

A lot of the pre-match talk was of the five missing (suspended or injured) VT players, including Paul Sales and Tyrone Bowers. Poole too were short with no Mike Walker (suspended) and also Stuart Brown's unavailability. Much has been said about the strength in depth of Poole's squad and with Aaron Skelton, Dave Sturgess and Steve Smith starting there was still huge quality on the Poole bench.

A good crowd of 285 saw the match ebb and flow right from the start with both sides looking threatening going forwards. Poole opened the scoring on just six minutes. Aaron Skelton (another masterly midfield performance) broke down the left side and his low cross (shot??!) found Steve Smith at the far post and the young striker made no mistake to score his 14th goal of the season.

Poole continued to dominate possession but VT did look good going forward and on 16 minutes a good move from the home side saw a shot pushed away by Harvell in the Poole goal. From the resulting corner the ball was sent deep to the far side of the Poole area and a header back across the box saw the ball drop perfectly over everyone and into the far corner. 1-1 after 17 minutes and very much game on. There are times however when Poole are irrepressible and this felt like one of those occasions. Despite VT drawing level you just felt that Poole were not going to be denied this night.

On 29 minutes there was a great interchange of Poole passes on the left and Bailey-Pearce crossed the ball in. A shot was blocked before the ball dropped to Charlie Austin and his coolness allowed him to control the ball and wait to pick his spot by side footing the ball home.

Back came VT and on the half hour they should have been level again. A cross from the right found a player unmarked and his free header went wide of the right hand post when hitting the target looked easier. This was to prove costly as just six minutes later Poole took a commanding 3-1 lead. The tireless Kevin Gill cut in from the right and on reaching the edge of the box he fired off a left foot shot which took a cruel deflection and looped high over the keeper into the far corner of the net.

At this point you could almost see the VT heads physically drop. Poole piled forward. On 39 minutes Skelton produced another great ball which sent Austin clear. His shot was well saved by the home keeper and Austin attempted an audacious back heel with the rebound. Unfortunately the ball went out for a goalkick.

VT had a long range effort well saved low down by Harvell on 41 minutes and on the stroke of half time Poole nearly increased their lead when Simon Browne produced a header just over the bar from a Skelton corner. It was a very good half which would be matched if not bettered in the second forty five minutes.

Half time: 1-3.

Bailey-Pearce had picked up a knock in the first half and just two minutes into the second half it proved too much and he went off to be replaced by Sean Hogan. Hogan has been a firm favourite with the Poole supporters over the last two or three seasons and now back from Uni for the holidays it was fantastic to see him back in a Poole shirt. If anyone thought he might not be on the pace they needn't have worried - he was superb in the second half and caused VT all sorts of headaches down the right side.

There was really only one team in it for the rest of the game and not for one second did Poole sit back and defend the lead they had. This was a case of proving a point to VT and they did it in style. Skelton again was pulling the strings in midfield spraying balls left and right into the danger areas. Once such move saw the ball drop out to Dave Sturgess on the edge of the box and he produced a typical Sturgess like volley to find the top left corner. 4-1 on 70 minutes.

Mickey Hubbard replaced Skelton on 76 minutes and within four minutes his corner found Steve Smith who produced a thunderous volley that appeared to come off the crossbar / post stanchion, bounce down and was cleared. It looked like a certain goal but it was not given. Smith was replaced on 88 minutes by Carl Poore and it was great to see him return to Poole colours after his injury problems since the Laverstock match.

A rash challenge on Gill saw a bit of commotion in the middle of the park with skipper Browne picking up a yellow card and two more VT players being added to the book as well.

It was substitute Hogan who had the last word as he picked the ball up wide on the right and delivered a perfect chip to beat the keeper and find the top corner. It capped a fantastic team performance and every player was given an ovation as they left the pitch just seconds later.

Nights like this are what make following Poole Town so very special.