BOWERS and Pitsea cruised to a home victory against local rivals Hullbridge on Tuesday night.

Goals from Alex Tenola, Marc Steadman and Ibby Conteh saw the hosts win 3-0 in the Essex Senior League tie.

Hullbridge finished the game with ten men after Sam Taylor was shown a red card in the second half.

And the visitors were also forced to put midfielder Sean Savage in goal for the majority of the match after debutant Charlie Smith suffered a cut head towards the end of the first half.

Tenola opened the scoring 27 minutes in when he found space in the box to slot home for Bowers.

Eleven minutes later Steadman doubled the lead when a cross he sent in from the left wing ended up flying into the top corner of the net.

Conteh finished proceedings off five minutes before the end when Lorenzo Ramsey took the ball round the keeper before squaring it to his team-mate to tap into an empty net.

John Doyle, manager of Bowers, said it was a good win over a local rival.

“Everything went to plan,” he said.

“It is very important to win any game but especially when it is a local derby. If you want to win the league then these are the games you must win.”

Hullbridge manager Dan Braney said it was a bad day at the office for his team but they must dust themselves off.

Braney said: “It was just one of those games where we couldn’t find our rhythm, but we can pick ourselves back up again and sort it out for Saturday.”