Duff delight at high five

Cheltenham 5 Exeter City 3

MICHAEL DUFF hailed Cheltenham’s first-half display as Liam Sercombe netted a brace against his former club to keep the Robins in second.

Archie Collins put

Exeter ahead before Sercombe and Alfie May turned things around.

Sercombe (above) completed his double from the penalty spot to make it 3-1 at the break.

Matt Jay pulled one back for the Grecians but Andy Williams restored Cheltenham’s lead.

Nicky Law curled in Exeter’s third late on, but

Will Boyle made the game safe at the death.

“It was a good game, which had everything: goals, incidents and goals from the first few minutes to the last few, so there was always something happening,” he said.

“We were excellent today, particularly first half. I thought we should have been out of sight by half-time, hitting the crossbar and having shots cleared off the line.

“We hurt them in every which way possible, after a poor start. The reaction to that was really good and that’s our best half of the season so far.” Exeter boss Matt Taylor admitted his team were poor defensively, undermining their attacking strength.

“We were short in all departments,” he said.

“I was pleased to see us score three goals against a well-drilled side, but to ship five was worrying.

“Teams won’t score – or will rarely score – three goals against Cheltenham this season. It doesn’t matter that we’ve scored more goals than any other team in the league, we’ve conceded far too many.

“Cheltenham are a physical side but if we can’t stand up to that physical presence we have to use the ball better and we didn’t today.”