Essex Senior League: Ilford 3 Waltham Forest 0

Ilford were comfortably 3-0 winners against Waltham Forest, but in truth had it not been for some wasteful finishing from the Ilford strike force the scoreline could have been far more.

It took until the 10th minute for the first chance to arise when a poor goal kick from Raul Vargas, which would be a problem for Waltham throughout the game, was cut out by Dan Jones who played a low cross to Wale Odedoyin who should have opened the scoring, but his shot was tame and comfortably saved.

Three minutes later and Ilford were 1-0 up, man of the match Jones picked up the ball on the edge of the box before dribbling past a defender and curling his effort inside the right hand bottom corner, a fantastic finish which Vargas could do nothing about despite being at full stretch.

From this point on Ilford began to take over as Odedoyin had a goalbound header blocked by his own player after a cross from Ryan Barker-Francis on the left wing.

Twenty-one minutes in and it was 2-0 after another short goal kick was picked up by Ilford, Odedoyin gracefully controlling the high ball before playing a perfectly timed through ball to Francis who confidently placed the ball past Vargas at the near post.

It was at the half hour mark that Vargas was taken off goal kicking duties and replaced by Kubilay Akbayrak in a move largely symbolic of Forest’s performance throughout the match. A goal mouth scramble followed an Ilford freekick which Vargas spilled into a congest box, the resulting rebound hitting the post.

The closest Forest came to a goal was just after the start of the second half, when left back Migel Lopes de Matos made a run into the box and his powerful shot came crashing off the bar.The rest of the match played as the first half had done so, with Ilford on top.

On the hour mark a long throw from Luke McLeary bounced and bobbled along the box as the Forest defence were at sixes and sevens allowing Jones to head into an empty net from a yard out for his second of the match.

Jones would have two clear opportunities to grab the hat trick as he found himself one-on- one with the keeper in the final quarter of the game.

On the first occasion he shot narrowly wide using the outside of his boot, and on the second occasion after the Waltham Forest defence were still organising themselves for a corner, Sam Bubb played the ball short to Jones who ran into the box unmarked but his shot was saved well by Vargas.

He may not have got his hat trick but it was a comprehensive display from Ilford who never really looked in any danger after the opening goal.

Manager Allen Fenn will no doubt be happy with the scoreline if not a little disappointed with the poor finishing at times. Meanwhile for Waltham Forest it is back to the drawing board.