Prime and Hawkenbury served up plenty of fireworks during an 11-goal thriller at Cadogan.

The home side were without Ellis from their last outing, so Scott Walters' return was timely to fill the left-wing void. Joe Walker also made his first appearance of the season - last season's top scorer replaced player/boss Goldsmith up-front. Overy and Postlethwaite made up the spaces on the bench.

Prime pushed hard from the outset with Walker and Barker both coming close, but on 10 minutes Hawkenbury took the lead. A long ball forward was again allowed to bounce by the centre-backs and Hawkenbury's pacy striker nipped in to lift the ball over the advancing Kerton and then nod home from a yard out.

Prime laid seige to the Hawks goal but they were starting to wonder if their luck was out as the crossbar was rattled no less than 3 times and then Walker contrived to lift the ball over the bar from 6 yards.

But Walker redeemed himself midway through the half when his mis-hit volley from a high dropping ball eluded the visiting keeper and just had the power to trickle into the net.

Prime got their noses in front just before half-time in bizarre circumstances. Cary went into a 50/50 tackle just a yard inside Hawks' territory. He struck the ball with venom and the ball sailed like an exocet into the roof of the net!

Prime carried on where they left off after the interval with Barker and Walker causing problems for the Hawkenbury defence and it was not long until Prime were 4-1 ahead. Barker's physical presence was too much for his markers all day and he finished coolly for 3-1, before the hard-working Coleman picked up the ball on the right-hand corner of the area. He took a touch before volleying an unstoppable volley into the bottom corner. Mustard!

What followed was a spellbinding 15 minute spell where Prime seemed set to throw away a seemingly impregnable position.

Firstly Hawkenbury scored more or less straight from the kick-off with a virtual carbon-copy of their opening goal.

A minute later it was 4-3 as a long ball cleared Gilbert and Cary and their striker beat Kerton.

Goldsmith brought himself on for Cary with half an hour to go in a bid to stem the flow and his first involvement was to waste a glorious opportunity to wrap the game up. Abu's corner fell perfectly for him to nod home unmarked but although he connected well with the header, he contrived to head it into his own arm and the chance was gone!

It seemed like this would be a costly miss when Hawkenbury's right-winger dug out a cross from near the corner flag and somehow the ball swirled away from Goldsmith, Barnham and Kerton and onto the head of Hawkenbury's pint-sized striker who nodded home and parity was restored.

Suddenly though it felt like the visitors took their foot off the gas and Prime were straight back at them from the kick-off.

It might have been route one, but Prime did not care one bit when Kerton's long clearance released Barker, who was again too strong for both defenders and finished well.

Overy came on for the tiring Walker to provide some fresh legs up front and it was not long before the game was safe - Barker again shrugging off the defenders to beat the keeper and claim a thoroughly deserved hat-trick. He was immediately replaced by Postlethwaite.

With Hawkenbury heads now firmly down, Abu put the icing on the cake with a curling effort into the top right hand corner of the net, leaving the keeper grasping at thin air.

It was a superb match of ebb and flow and one that for large parts the home side dominated but having nearly shot themselves in the foot in spectacular fashion, credit must be given for managing to dig out the deserved win.

Barker walked away with another Man of the Match award, but Walker and Walters were both excellent on their return and Henshall and Abu are now looking a formidable partnership in central-midfield. A special mention again to Martin Coleman who played despite severe man-flu and apart from his excellent goal, his all-round contribution was immense.