St Albans’ good start to the Conference East season continued with a 5-1 routing of Old Loughtonians.

They had lost their only game of the season at Chichester one week earlier but this success keeps them at the sharp end of the division, sitting third in the table, three points behind leaders Wapping.

David Williams bagged two while Matt Davey, Teague Marcano and Tariq Marcano completed the victory

The Oaklands College-based hockey club had to soak up a lot of pressure from their Chigwell hosts with goalkeeper Iain Fraser being called into action on several occasions.

But with what seemed like Saints' first attack of the game Williams opened the scoring with a neat deflection in front of the Loughts goalkeeper.

He then added a second a few minutes later with an audacious finish from the base line, nestling the ball in the roof of the net and from there the Tangerines began to dominate the game, with their defensive structure leaving Loughtonians out of ideas in the final quarter of the pitch.

A third goal was added through skipper Davey converted a short corner with his trademark drag flick but a spanner was thrown into the St Albans charge when Ian Scanlon was given a yellow card, sitting out for 10 minutes.

And yet even short-handed it was the away side who got the only goal of that period through Teague Marcano after the hosts substituted their goalkeeper in favour of an extra outfield player.

They did manage to break their clean sheet thanks to a bit of individual magic from their Polish international but it was St Albans who had the final say when Tariq Marcano, one of their own overseas stars, converted another short corner with a well placed drag flick into the top corner.

They host Spencer on Saturday, the side directly above them in the table.

Across in the ladies' section the fifth team maintained their 100 per cent record with a comfortable 5-1 home win over Letchworth.

Joni Gorham scored two with Gemma Berry, Erin Hugo and Lydia Edwards each adding one.

It was another disappointing weekend for the firsts who returned from Cambridge City on the end of a 6-1 defeat, Tash Humphris scoring their only goal.

There were wins for the seconds, thirds and sixths.

The twos beat Cambridge City 3-1 with Lexi Hamilton getting a double and Sarah Mobbs one while the threes came back from conceding the first goal at West Herts to win 5-2.

Liz Cleverly scored a hat-trick and Beth Jepson two.

The sixths beat Potters Bar 3-0 with Georgia Hines (two) and Madeline Gould scoring.