Axmouth United powered into the last eight of the Football Express Cup with a 6-1 defeat of Feniton Reserves.

United keeper Andrew Smart was at his best to twice deny the visitors, whilst, at the opposite end of the pitch, Stuart Ackroyd had an effort hacked clear of the goal-line, in a fast paced start to the contest.

The deadlock was broken in the 20th minute when a Matt Ellis header was only parried and Scott Dyer reacted quickest to thump the ball home.

Four minutes later United were two up when impressive skipper Christian Burridge played in Jamie Hughes who evaded two defenders before applying a cool finish. Dyer then got on the end of a Burridge cross to make it 3-0 but Feniton

took advantage of lack of concentration and got a deserved goal with the last

kick of the first half with a fine strike from the edge of the area.

Five minutes after the re-start Hughes played in Reece Hales who joyfully netted in what was only his second game back from a lengthy injury lay-off. Sadly Hales limped off shortly after leading to the introduction of Charlie Clarke for his first appearance of the new term. Within minutes Clarke was in the thick of the action drawing a superb save from the Feniton glovesman.

Clarke had the last laugh though, scoring twice in then final five minutes. His first saw him hook the ball home from an acute angle from yet another Burridge assist and his second was a cool lob over the keeper after he had been played in by Dan Jeeves.

United boss Laurie Forino was clearly delighted post match, saying: “Given that I was forced to make six changes from the previous weeks winning team this was very pleasing indeed. I thought the lads were great again and the back four of Burridge, Challis, Ellis and Sweeney were very solid whilst Juan Martin had a good first start since signing for us in the summer. We played some really good stuff at times and continue to improve and showed the benefit of having a bigger squad to handle injuries and absence. In what was another solid team display there were several good performances but Jamie Hughes just gets my Man of the Match award.”