THE form of Lee Radford and James Blake has delighted Elmore manager Pete Buckingham as his team continue to climb away from relegation trouble.
Radford, who signed for the Eagles three weeks ago, netted a hat-trick as his side beat high-flying Torpoint Athletic 5-2 away.
Blake predictably got the other two goals as he continues to recover from medial knee ligament injury that has kept him out for the majority of the season.
It is not surprising that since Radford's arrival from Witheridge and Blake's return to the side that the Eagles have won three games from three, with Cullompton to face next.
"He (Blake) is still not 100 per cent fit, he has been out since the start of the season and it is only his third game back, but I think it is going to take him a few more games before he gets his 90-minute fitness back.
"But Lee Radford to score a hat-trick, sends a message out to everyone else. It says that we are not relying on Blakey to score all the goals.
"That is the message. We have got Cullompton next Saturday and the team that played them earlier in the season and lost 1-0, will be unrecognisable from the team that plays them at the weekend.
"I saw that Mike Taylor (Cullompton's manager) said last week in the paper that he was hoping to get two wins out of the next three and they lost 6-0 on Saturday.
"Now he has got to beat us and Witheridge and if I was Mike, I'd would be worried about our strikeforce because they are a handful for anybody.
"I know we are down the bottom of the table, but we have got four games in hand on Camelford and three games on most of the rest and we have had some tough games already."
Radford fired Elmore in front after 22 minutes with a shot from the edge of the area before intercepting a back-pass to make it 2-0. Blake then made it 3-0 before Torpoint got back into the game as Danny Tapp headed the ball into his own net, but Radford then completed his hat-trick and Balke netted again to make the game safe.
