Hannant proud as 'great' Gateshead land big win at National League rivals Wealdstone

Two-goal hero Luke Hannant praised Gateshead for staying true to their preferred style of football in testing conditions during Saturday’s 4-0 win at National League rivals Wealdstone.

Heed manager Carl Magnay has been hard at work adding to his squad during his side’s two-week break without a game and he handed debuts to goalkeeper George Shelvey, defender Branden Horton and midfielder Jack Roles at Grosvenor Vale as he refreshed his options. The rewards came as another recent addition, on-loan Brighton and Hove Albion striker Louis Flower, won two penalties during the first-half that were comfortably converted by Hannant.

Flower was replaced by former West Bromwich Albion striker Jovan Malcolm just before the hour-mark and the Heed summer signing gave his manager a nudge as he made light of a heavy pitch to grab a second-half brace and lead his side to an impressive away win on their long-awaited return to action. Speaking after the game, Hannant admitted the conditions had made it difficult to implement the Heed’s eye-catching style of passing play - but he was proud of his team-mates as they earned a maximum reward for ‘a great all-round team performance’.

He told the club website: “We dealt with the conditions really well and even though the pitch wasn’t the best, we still wanted to implement our style of play. We didn’t want to have to be forced into going long and not play into their hands as they’re a good footballing team, but come away from our style of play and I thought we did that really well. Obviously, it was challenging at times but George had a fantastic game, he set the tempo in terms of playing out from the back and it allowed the forwards to get on the ball a lot. We created a lot of space for us to get in behind and it was a great all-round performance from start to finish.”

Hannant’s penalty-taking exploits have become a regular feature in Gateshead’s season and Saturday’s pair of spot-kicks has taken the former Cambridge United wing-back into double figures for the season. The Heed favourite was delighted to be successful from 12 yards once again and believes both goals gave his side momentum to take into the remainder of the game.

“It’s great to get a couple more penalties but it’s the only way I’m scoring at the moment to be fair,” he joked. “You have to put them away and that comes from fantastic work from Louis. He was brilliant today, he ran in behind and caused their backline a lot of trouble. We could have had a couple more penalties to be honest. I picked a side and put them away. It got really loud behind the goal for the first pen so I just kept my nerve and put it in the corner - but it set the tone for the rest of the game getting those two early goals.”

The Heed are back in action on Tuesday night when they host Braintree Town at the International Stadium.

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