MAGPIES Danny O'Hagan took home the match ball last night after his hat-trick at St Leonards shot him to the top of the Dr Martens Eastern Division goalscoring charts.

And his team's 3-0 win - their 12th victory in 19 league outings - saw them go level on points with league leaders Grantham who have a slightly better goal difference.

O'Hagan's second goal in a powerful Dorchester display was initially credited to team-mate Andy Harris by the announcer at The Firs. But at the end of the game St Leonard's boss Glynn White acknowledged O'Hagan's treble by presenting him with the ball. That took his tally so far this season to 15 - 13 of them in the league - and today Magpies boss Mark Morris banished any doubt about his achievement. "It was definitely a hat-trick for Danny and a just reward for another brilliant performance by him," said Morris.

"The lad's on fire at the moment and is probably playing better than he has ever done.

"He's a real, old-fashioned type of striker who works his socks off every week. He takes a lot of stick from defenders but he just gets on with it and is causing defences all kinds of problems. Sometimes, like on Saturday against Corby, he puts in a lot of unselfish work and doesn't get a goal and sometimes like tonight he will get what he deserves."

Morris, who had stressed the importance of winning away from home if his side are to match closest rivals Grantham and Hastings, rated last night's performance as his side's most forceful on their travels this season.

"Considering it was our second game in 48 hours the level of energy and enthusiasm the lads showed was quite remarkable and it was probably our most complete team display so far," he said. "I told them I thought we could overpower St Leonards if we hit them hard from the word go and that is exactly what we did. I think that is the way to go in that sort of away game.

"Now we can look forward to our three cup games knowing that for the moment we have done all we can to stay up near the top."

Defender Mark Jermyn made an unexpected recovery from the thigh injury which forced him to be substituted against Corby and took over again from Carl Poore last night.

"That's typical of the spirit among the lads, everyone is just desperate to play and from my point of view that is great," said Morris.