Canvey Island bounced back from their first defeat of the season with a resounding 4-0 win against Hashtag United at a sunswept Park Lane on Saturday.

There were two new faces on the Canvey Island bench in the shape of Darnell Shakes and Fiky Atewologun. Shakes is a defender who has previously played for clubs including Hayes & Yeading United, Grays Athletic, Heybridge Swifts and FC Romania, while Atewologun has turned out for Bromley.

The Tags starting XI meanwhile included Steve Sheehan, the central defender who made 191 appearances and scored 15 goals for Canvey after originally joining in 2011.

After a quiet start to the match, Canvey fashioned the first chance of note on 14 minutes. A ball over from the left by Evans Kouassi was half cleared by Steve Sheehan, but only as far as Elliott Ronto. He took a touch inside the area and shot left-footed, but his effort was blocked by a defender.

Canvey took the lead seconds later when a clearance from a cross fell to the feet of Conor Hubble 20 yards from goal. Hubble sent a defender the wrong way before curling a superb shot across goal and into the bottom corner with his left foot.

Hashtag had an opportunity to equalise three minutes later when George Smith dribbled into the area from the left and cut the ball across the face of goal where a teammate was lurking. However, Evangelos Empochontsif showed good awareness to nip in and steal possession away at the vital moment.

This interception proved to be an important one, as less than a minute later Canvey had doubled their advantage. Evans Kouassi collected the ball on the edge of the box, turned past two defenders and beat the keeper diving to his right from the edge of the area.

Manager Mark Bentley was forced into a change on 23 minutes when Jey Siva hobbled off with an ankle injury, being replaced by Billy Carter for his first appearances for the club.

Any thoughts of this disrupting Canvey were extinguished a minute later when Matt Price got his name on the scoresheet. Evans Kouassi brought the ball down the left and cut it for Price who shot across goal and inside the far post.

Price had two more chances in quick succession in the 28th and 29th minute. His first from the edge of the area was turned behind for a corner by Anthony Page, while his second was bent wide of the bottom corner having been played through by Harrison Chatting.

Hashtag manager Jay Devereaux made all three of his substitutions at half time, replacing Daniel Smith, Jake Lindsey and George Smith with Kiernan Hughes-Mason, Harry Haysom and Carlos Flood.

Having completely dominated the first half, Canvey’s second half showing by comparison was well below par and they found themselves second best for the entire 45 minutes.

Bobby Mason produced an excellent save to keep out Harry Haysom’s header on 54 minutes. The flag subsequently went up for offside, although that should detract from the quality of Mason’s save high above his head.

Further saves came to deny Jesse Lassen and Joshua Osuoe, with the visitors fully in control of proceedings but without making it count.

This lack of a cutting edge up in attack came back to haunt them with four minutes remaining when Canvey scored their fourth goal with one of their only meaningful attacks of the second half. Evans Kouassi ran towards goal down the right, executing a series of step overs.

Using Matt Price as a decoy, Kouassi eventually side stepped his marker and fired a shot across goal and into the bottom corner from the right to score his second of the afternoon.

Canvey finished the match with ten men when Elliott Ronto was shown a second yellow card in the 90th minute following a foul.

Then, after the final whistle, Hashtag forward Joshua Osuoe was dismissed for an incident after the final whistle to bring to an end a bad tempered second half.

Photo: KJA Sports Images