A hat-trick from Matthew Sanders including a superb chipped effort from 35 yards out has fired the Hobart Zebras to a commanding 5-0 victory over Clarence to kick off round 2 of the NPL TAS season. New centre back Nicholas Groenewold also helped himself to a brace as the Zebras set piece prowess came to fruition in a dominant display.

It was Sanders who stole the show however, his spectacular third was the highlight of the night in an otherwise physically bruising game with two sides battling hard before the Zebras class ultimately won out.

After a furiously paced opening 20 minutes with both sides looking to get the ball forward quickly it was Nicholas Groenewold who opened the scoring with a thumping header. Downes curled in a pinpoint free kick and the centre back smashed it in off the bottom side of the cross bar.

Clarence looked to respond and immediately had a couple of promising moments on the counter but couldn’t produce a quality final ball into the box and in the blink of an eye they were down 2-0.

Demar was robbed of the ball by Lagu who worked it to Sanders who skipped around Price before finishing with a clinical finish into the bottom corner to open his account for the season.

Clarence’s night then went from bad to worse as Demar limped off with an injury shortly before half time.

Early in the second half Sanders had doubled his tally after McKeown and Walsh worked together nicely on the left, with Walsh putting it on a platter for Sanders to tap home from close range and put the game beyond doubt at 3-0.

Zebras weren’t done yet though and Groenewold soon added a fourth as Sanders this time turned creator. He curled in a cross to the back post after taking a short corner and the American was on hand to bundle it home.

The goal of the night was still to come however as Sanders capped off a man of the match performance with an early contender for goal of the season. Spying the keeper a fraction off his line, Sanders launched a chipped effort that lobbed Randall and curled in underneath the bar.

It capped off a 5-0 victory for Zebras and temporarily moved them to the top of the table ahead of a showdown with South Hobart next Friday night. Sanders was simply unstoppable up top and was supported well by Dwayne Walsh who was dynamic down the right, whilst Chris Downes also shone, with his set piece delivery and long range passing a particular highlight.

Zebras Assistant Coach Jez Kenth was happy with the sides response after a 2-2 draw last week and suggested they would only get better from here.

“It was a much better performance today, we learnt a lot from the second half again Devonport, we put some things in place over the week and worked on the mistakes we made.”

“We’re still gelling as a team, we will still improve our understanding and combination play. We don’t want to just play it long, we did that quite well today,  once we got Jordan (Muller) onto the ball we looked good.”

Clarence Coach Alan Jablonski was happy with his sides effort but bemoaned their lack of execution.

“I wasn’t disappointed with the effort, but disappointed with the result, I hate losing. “

“We need to move the ball quicker forward, we need to transition a lot better and get numbers in the box, a number of times the ball bounced in their six yard box and we just haven’t got numbers there.”