A first-half goal blitz gave PHC Zebras a comfortable 6-2 win against the Somerset Eagles at White Hill Field yesterday.

PHC scored four goals in the first 45 minutes of this FA Cup third-round match to lead Eagles 4-1.

Zebras were inspired by Tristan Hall who scored a hat-trick. In the second period, PHC found the going a little bit tougher but still managed to score two more goals to extend their lead, before Eagles converted an injury-time penalty to make the score 6-2.

PHC took the lead courtesy of a fifth-minute penalty after forward Idrees Sharrieff was brought down in the box by an Eagles defender.

Cecoy Robinson, the PHC captain, stepped up and duly put his spot kick away to put his side in front.

PHC would then double their lead 20 minutes later thanks to Hall. Hall, the Zebras forward, got behind the Eagles defence, but fired his shot straight at the Eagles goalkeeper, Lorenzo Lambert. However, Hall was alert enough to collect the rebound and put his shot home at the second attempt.

Four minutes after Hall scored, Davin Riley-Clarke got Eagles on the scoreboard. A searching free kick from the right, found Riley-Clarke unmarked, and the Eagles full back made no mistake in planting his header into the back of the net, in spite of the best efforts of Stefan Dill, the Zebras goalkeeper.

But just as it seemed that Eagles were finding their way back into the match, Zebras pounced again.

Marco Warren ghosted into the Eagles penalty area unchecked and produced a tidy finish from close range to restore Zebras’ two-goal advantage in the 31st minute.

PHC would score again in the 43rd minute when Hall grabbed his second goal, to give them a 4-1 lead at half-time, with Hall firing into the top corner after beating the Eagles offside trap.

PHC made a substitution at the start of the second half with Keishon Bean coming on for Sharrieff, but it was the Eagles who appeared to return from the interval as a different team.

They began to play with more purpose and tried to put up more resistance. They even put some chances together, but were unable to make them count.

Eagles’ inability to make their newly found momentum count, inevitably cost them as Hall completed his hat-trick in the 58th minute and stretched the visiting side lead to 5-1. Hall had been having a solid game and his treble was a just reward for the lanky forward.

Zebras put the icing on the cake with a sixth goal. In the 61st minute, substitute Bean was brought down in the box. Robinson allowed Bean to take the penalty and having won it, Bean obliged and put it home.

Another Zebras substitute, Jaavaid Warren-Smith, was then unlucky not to extend their lead to 7-1. To demonstrate how comfortable the match had become for them, Zebras were able to replace experienced full back Jonathan Ball with youngster Deandre Smith-Lightbourne. And then having made all three of their subs, the visiting side took off Warren, who was beginning to look tired, and they played the remainder of the match with ten men.

Even at 6-1 down, Eagles were not quite ready to give up and they managed to win an injury-time penalty. Khimo Harrison, the Eagles midfielder, converted it to give the score line a more respectable look. But it was too little, too late, as the final whistle soon blew, meaning that Zebras pranced into the next round of the FA Cup and the Eagles were left to ponder what went wrong.