The Bucks have beaten St Ives 3-1 amid stormy conditions at the SEAH Stadium.

It was raining goals early on, in fact, as Kevin Wilkin’s men made a terrific start to the game to race into a 3-0 lead after just 25 minutes. The Bucks opened the scoring in the 7th minute when Matty Stenson tapped in after Ives keeper Dan Wilks had done well to turn Remi Walker’s effort onto the post. And Walker and Stenson combined again to make it 2-0 ten minutes, with Stenson heading in Walker’s whipped near post corner. Walker then got himself on the scoresheet in the 25th minute, with a goal that owed much to the wet conditions. Wilks seemed to have Walker’s low drive well covered, but the ball somehow squirmed under the St Ives keeper and trickled over the line.

At that stage it looked like the Bucks might run riot, with Ricardo Dinanga and Stenson going close to adding further goals to the tally, but Wilks made some good saves to keep the halftime score to 3-0.

But if the Bucks thought they would cruise to three points, Josh Allen’s 52nd minute goal abruptly brought an end to that notion. The Ives launched a counterattack on the back of a Bucks corner, and Allen did well to cut inside Byron Moore and a fire a precise shot past Brandon Hall for his first goal for St Ives since his move from AFC Sudbury.

And that goal set the tone for the second 45. As the wind and the rain died down, the Bucks too looked like they might have blown themselves out. Wilkin’s men looked a shadow of the side who had raced into a three-goal lead, but that was largely due to St Ives’ tactical tweaks and spirited second half performance. But while the Cambridgeshire side were the better of the two teams in the second half, they couldn’t find a way through the Bucks defence again. That was in no small part thanks to two fantastic saves from Hall, who tipped over Amir Hadi’s 75th-minute shot before the Bucks keeper somehow turned Jordan Williams’ shot behind for a corner right at the death.

The Ives made life uncomfortable in the second half, but the Bucks stood firm and claimed a 3-1 win that was, over the 90 minutes, well deserved.