South Shields in five-star showing at 1st Cloud Arena on Saturday

The Mariners swept aside Marske United with a 5-2 victory as Dylan Mottley-Henry netted his first hat-trick in senior football and the hosts continued their unbeaten start to the campaign.

Mackenzie Heaney and Jordan Hunter were also among the goals for Shields, who will learn their next opponents on Monday afternoon.

Kevin Phillips’ side have yet to taste defeat this season, but were expecting a difficult test against a Marske side which eliminated them from last year’s FA Cup in comfortable fashion.

From the outset, there was a different feel to this tie, with Heaney sliding the Mariners in front after just 58 seconds as he clinically finished a low cross from Hunter.

Mottley-Henry continued Shields’ dream start on five minutes when played in by a superb Conor Newton through ball, racing through before finding the bottom corner.

The hosts were in blistering form as they attacked relentlessly, with Mottley-Henry almost doubling his tally with an outside-the-boot strike which skimmed the post.

Marske were second-best but had a golden chance to reduce the deficit when Josh MacDonald crossed to Connor Simpson, but his close range effort was straight at Myles Boney before Adam Boyes dragged a shot wide in the aftermath.

Shields stretched their advantage midway through the half as Heaney played Mottley-Henry through on goal and his initial effort was saved by goalkeeper Ryan Catterick before he slid the ball into the net on the rebound.

Catterick tipped Mottley-Henry’s next attempt around the post and the away team looked to have gained a foot hold when Connor Smith brilliantly picked out the top corner with a curler in first half stoppage time.

Their hope was short-lived, though, as Shields attacked immediately from the restart and Mottley-Henry tucked the ball into the net for his hat-trick after a cut-back from Lewis Alessandra.

Less than five minutes into the second half, Hunter added his name to the scoresheet with a drilled effort which took a deflection on its way in as he capped his bright performance with a goal.

Marske remained spirited, but Boney kept out Theo Hudson with a fine save at his near post and at the other end, only a close range miss by Alessandra kept the away team’s deficit at five.

Catterick also produced a brilliant save from Alessandra before palming a longer range strike by Robert Briggs away from danger.

With the last kick of the game, Rob Guilfoyle got one back for the visitors with a superb free-kick which found the top corner, but ultimately that did not dampen an impressive Shields performance.

They are back in league action on Tuesday when they travel to FC United of Manchester.

South Shields: Boney, Newton, Broadbent, Liddle, Morse, Smith, Hunter (McGowan 65), Mottley-Henry (Briggs 72), Alessandra, Heaney (Hodgson 76), Adams (c).

Goals: Heaney (1), Mottley-Henry (5, 26, 45+3), Hunter (50).

Attendance: 1,218.