PURTON manager Justin Miller was pleased to see his team pull off a professional job and see off a short-staffed Milton United on Saturday.

Miller’s men helped themselves to a welcome three points and stretched their unbeaten run in all competitions to eight matches with a 4-0 triumph but only after overcoming the unusual prospect of taking on 10 players.

Milton arrived at the Red House a man short and with no substitutes, and it took well past the half-hour mark for Purton to make a breakthrough.

Miller opted to shuffle his pack midway through the first half and introduce Matt Bennett, who opened the scoring, before Joe Hiscock, Marcus Hall and Nathan Gambling all also found the net for the home side.

“It was a bit of a strange one because Milton turned up with just 10 men,” said the Purton boss.

“They’ve got no reserve team, they had quite a few out and apparently, they’d had a virus run through their team.

“It’s not what you’re used to and sometimes, it can be quite hard to play against 10 men.

“They put everybody behind the ball and we found it quite hard to break them down, so we decided to sacrifice a defender and put Matt Bennett, who’s a more attacking player on – we did that after we’d had a look at things for a little while.

“In the end, we got the job done and that’s all you can do.

“There are teams that have played against 10 men and haven’t won those games, so we’re pleased with the result.”

Elsewhere, Fairford Town progressed into the quarter-finals of the Gloucestershire FA Challenge Trophy with a 3-1 victory at Bristol Telephones.

Gareth Davies’ men didn’t allow themselves to ring it in against lower-league opposition, taking a 2-0 half-time lead through Jason Milhench and Matt Boucher.

Lee Smith missed the chance to make it 3-0 when he missed from the penalty spot and the hosts reduced the deficit with a spot-kick of their own but Smith redeemed himself by notching Fairford’s third with five minutes to go.