Panter leads the way as Poppies rediscover their shooting boots in Stamford rout

The scoreline does need a slight caveat in that the Poppies were hosting rock bottom Stamford who still haven’t registered a single point in the league – and there was little to suggest that the Daniels, who were stripped of their manager and several key players last season, will be able to turn things around anytime soon.

But the cliché is that you can only play what is in front of you and in the second half in particular, the Poppies dismantled their visitors at will to royally entertain the crowd of 1,125.

Four changes were made to the starting XI that could only muster an unsatisfactory draw at Hitchin at the weekend, with captain Lawson D’Ath dropped from the entire matchday squad.

Both Blaine Rowe and Ismael Fatadjo took their chances to produce strong performances – the latter especially by winning many of the lose balls in the middle of the field and spreading the play out wide where Kettering enjoyed a lot of success.

The opening goal came on 20 minutes when Eddie Panter applied a neat finish beyond James Goff after what appeared to be a back heel flick from Theo Alexandraou.

Goff however was on hand to beat away Fatadjo’s fierce shot four minutes later to keep Stamford in the match.

Jason Alexander, making his first appearance of the season, had a relatively uneventful game but still needed to be alert on 28 minutes when Maksymilian Jarzabek unleashed from distance but the Kettering keeper put in a diving save, more for the cameras than out of necessity.

It took until just before the hour mark for Kettering to finally get their second goal – the ball finding Panter near the penalty area who turned and pummelled the volley into the top right corner with Goff left rooted.

Two minutes later and the floodgates opened.

A lofted ball came through towards Michael Gaysi who rounded Goff, but the retreating Jake Walton appeared to have had the final touch when attempting to tackle, sending the ball over line.

For the final 25 minutes it was all about Panter getting his deserved hat trick.

He had the chance on 72 minutes but couldn’t latch onto a cross from the right, but you can’t keep this warrior down and on 82 minutes another cross was played across the face of goal at the near post by substitute Shaun Jeffers, and Panter got down low to nod home his third.

Jeffers added the cherry to the five-star performance with his own thunderbolt of an effort on 84 minutes after Blaine Rowe’s header found the former St Albans striker on the edge of the area.

This performance was a great way to both answer critics after a dour start to the season and also remind all players within the squad that no place in guaranteed in the starting lineup.

It is also just what was needed before a banana skin of a tie in the FA Cup, when the Poppies visit Wellingborough Town on Saturday.