A Gary Beckett hat-trick helped Enniskillen Town crush Lisnaskea Rovers, but the result was tarnished by the late sending off of Mark Little which sparked a melee at the end of the game.

With the referee about to blow the final whistle Little caught Rover’s defender Niall McElroy with an elbow and was dismissed by the referee and this led to tempers flaring.

“I have no issue with the red card, he swung his arm back and he was already on a yellow card,” admitted Town manager Rory Judge, who also quashed rumours that the game was abandoned. “I spoke the referee after the game and he said that he had blown the final whistle, that it wasn’t abandoned.” The scenes at the final whistle distracted attention from a convincing victory for Town. “It was a disappointing end to a positive result,” said Judge. “We have been playing well and we looked like we were going to click one of these weeks. We had been leaving it late and relying on a bit of good defensive work late on in games, but we started to put the goals together and finished a bit more clinically this time, and we were able to finish the game from a long way out.” Lisnaskea manager Gregory Copeland did not want to comment on the scenes at the final whistle, but admitted the score line was not what he had hoped for. “We were very disappointed,” he admitted. “It was always going to be a tough assignment to go down there, but we had eight players missing from the game two weeks prior, so we had a very young and inexperienced side. We started brightly and put them on the back foot for the first five or ten minutes but then for 15 or 20 minutes we lost our way and we were three of four down before we knew it, and there was no way back then. In the second half we limited them but Beckett caused us a few problems. He played up front but was coming off and the boys weren’t experienced enough to know whether to go with him or not.” Rovers had a couple of early sights of goal, but the closest they came to taking the lead was a shot that clipped the frame of the goal, and after ten minutes they fell behind when Gary Lynch headed a Thomas Owens cross into the net.

It took another 15 minutes for Town to add to their goal tally, but when they grabbed their second through a Gary Beckett volley they then quickly added two more. Adan Breen set up Gary Lynch for the third before Beckett put through Hanna for Town’s fourth. Before half time they made it five when Adam Breen netted.

With the game won Town could afford to back off in the second half, but Beckett still had time to complete his hat-trick when he chipped the keeper.

Rovers scored a consolation goal when Stephen Phair fired a low shot into the bottom corner from the edge of the penalty area, but Ciaran Brough hit back with a seventh goal for Town before the late skirmishes marred the victory.