LEFT feeling they should beat table topping North Shields Athletic by more than three goals indicates just how good Wallington were at the weekend.

An excellent team performance saw the Greens from Scots Gap stun the Premier Division leaders 4-3, the visitors equally as impressive in defence as in attack.

With striker John Paxton working the channels, Wallington’s policy of defending resolutely and then breaking at pace translated into all three points. They fell behind when a scrappy goal was fired through a cluster of bodies from a corner.

Whereas Wallington may have crumbled in games before the Christmas break, they roared back and should have been level immediately but Josh Willis fluffed his lines when one-on-one with the keeper.

There was no need to panic, though, as confident youngster Joel Laviers equalised with a sensational strike, his rocket from 20 yards rifling into the top corner to leave the goalkeeper with no chance.

The goal gave Wallington a lift and they went ahead when Paxton was played in by a dinked ball, and he lofted the bouncing ball over the goalkeeper’s head.

Wallington shot stopper Rob Hodgson played a big part in the third goal on the stroke of half time as he ignored all calls to slow the pace down, launching the ball upfield which ended with Paxton again beating the keeper for 3-1.

North Shields threw everything at Wallington after the break, but centre half pairing Josh Laverick and Callum Donohoe excelled in keeping them out.

The hosts’ frustrations were compounded four minutes into injury time when substitute Ben Culling played a deft lofted ball over the defence for Paxton to run on and complete his hat-trick, to start scenes of pandemonium.

Their good run came to an end on Wednesday, though, as they endured a torrid trip to Birtley Town.

A 3-1 defeat was just the tip of the iceberg after playing on a poor surface, seeing a player suffer a bad injury and then facing a long diversion on the trip home!