Grimsby Town 2 Notts. County 0

Last updated : 21 October 2003 By Footymad Previewer

The Mariners leapt into the top half of the Second Division table with their second home win in four days.

Although the result was the same as against Colchester on Saturday this was a much better performance and a poor County side got off lightly.

Two-goal Michael Boulding was back on song and but for keeper Steve Mildenhall he would surely have completed his hat-trick.

But it was a mistake by the keeper that gifted Boulding his 23rd minute opener. Mildenhall had the ball and then dropped it at the feet of Boulding who simply knocked it into the net.

But Boulding had to work a little harder for his second goal on 63 minutes, but again it followed a bad mistake by defender Nicky Fenton who gave the ball away from a free-kick and when Boulding was played through he made no mistake.

County's only spell of pressure came following Grimsby's first goal and with the talented Darren Caskey pulling the strings they could easily have equalised.

Firstly Caskey crashed a shot against the post and then forced keeper Aidan Davison into a fine save.

But once the second half was underway it was generally one-way traffic to the Notts goal and after the second goal the Mariners could well have had several more.

Grimsby now travel to Barnsley on Saturday with the confidence of two wins and a couple of clean sheets behind them and it will be a good test against their old rivals from Oakwell.

For Notts the future looks bleak as they are now level at the bottom of the table on points. They will need to show a greater improvement if this troubled old club is to get away from the fight against relegation.