Lee Carney kicked off his Three Bridges career in style with a hat-trick in a 6-0 drubbing of Hassocks.

The midfielder completed a shock move from Ryman premier side Horsham to the County League last week.

His decision to swap regular football with the Hornets for two divisions below with Bridges was a curious one.

But Bridges manager Paul Faili is delighted with his capture, particularly after Carney’s man-of-the-match debut at home to Hassocks.

Faili said: “He dominated the game from start to finish. He and Joel O’Hara were different class in midfield.

“We were magnificent and because of Lee the rest of the boys stepped up a level.

“We can’t do anything this year but we need to make sure we don’t go down.

“We feel Three Bridges is too big a club to go into division two.

“If we hadn’t made the investment now we would have to next year to get us out of division two.

“Anywhere mid-table or above would be great this season and then we would look to push on next year. If we could keep Lee for next year that would be great.

“He wanted to play more locally and that is what we are giving him. He is a Crawley boy and he wanted to play for a team in Crawley.”

Bridges hope Carney, who made more than 300 appearances in eight years at Horsham, can help their young players progress.

Two of them, George Hillier (two) and Elliot Romain, joined Carney on the scoresheet against Hassocks.

Only three division one games survived the cold snap and Bridges’ local rivals, Crawley Down, ran out 2-1 winners at Pagham thanks to a stoppage-time winner.

Tony Reid’s opener for the Anvils was cancelled out by Lee Bradshaw’s penalty for Pagham on the stroke of half-time. The visitors then missed a host of second-half chances before Nick Sullivan struck in the third minute of injury time.

Crawley Down boss Darren Guirey said: “We missed a hatful of chances so if we hadn’t won I would have been fuming.”

Former Albion midfielder Geoff Pitcher scored his 17th goal of the season as St Francis Rangers made it four wins out of five with a 3-2 success at bottom side Crowborough.

Pitcher cancelled out Sam Carrington’s opener, then Jamie Weston and Josh Hawkes, with his first senior goal from 25 yards, stretched the lead to 3-1. Charlie Ottway’s late reply was not enough.

Manager Roy Staughton said: “Geoff is really enjoying his football and that is showing in his game. His touches are superb and his first passes are just as good.

“There are not many ex-pros who would play at this standard of football for nothing but this is Geoff’s fourth season with us and he is really enjoying it.”

Peacehaven will face Redhill in the John O’Hara League Cup semi-finals after both got through tricky last eight ties.

Craig Bunch and Tom Burton scored two apiece as Peacehaven bounced back from three losses with a 4-2 win at Arundel despite having Wes Millis sent off.

Boss Peter Edwards said: “It was good to get back to how we believe we can play.”

Marcus Alcindor marked his first game as Redhill manager, having stepped up from assistant, with a 1-0 win at home to Chichester.

Lee Radford ran clear on to Charles Ofosuhene’s pass to score the only goal and Alcindor said: “It was a great result because they are a good footballing outfit.

“It was my first game and I’m loving it, especially with the way we played.”