Nantwich Town 4 Warrington Town 1.

NANTWICH Town moved up to second in the Evo-Stik Premier Division as a first-half blitz proved enough to see off Cheshire rivals Warrington.

In driving wind and rain, The Dabbers took an early lead through Matt Bell before a floodlight failure at Weaver Stadium took the players off the pitch for 10 minutes.

Within two minutes of the restart, Phil Parkinson’s side had trebled their lead with two wind assisted goals from John Johnstone and Andy White that blew away the visitors.

A three-goal deficit inside 20 minutes proved too much for the Yellows to recover from and Nantwich made it nine games unbeaten.

Within six minutes of a crazy first half, Dabbers were ahead when Bell’s left foot shot taking a wicked deflection which looped it high and wide of Tony McMillan in the Warrington goal.

It looked like Warrington had equalised on their first foray forward, on 12 minutes, when DanHattersley’s goal bound shot was held up in a muddy goalmouth enough to enable a defender to get across and scramble the ball away.

The frantic start came to an abrupt halt on 17 minutes when half of the Weaver Stadium floodlights went out, apparently tripped by the wind, but fortunately for the home side at least, they came back on soon after.

Warrington will have wished that they hadn’t, as they collapsed to two bizarre goals.

First, the wind got under Johnston’s 40-yard free-kick and took it all the way into the net.

Within 60 seconds, it was 3-0 as White cut inside and unleashed a left-foot shot which took off with the wind behind it and rocketed past a helpless McMillan.

For a spell, it looked like Nantwich would score every time the ball left a player’s boot.

The Yellows finally stemmed the tide, and almost pulled a goal back when a nice interchange between Lewis Codling and Dylan Vassallo set up a shot chance for Connor McCarthy, which he dragged wide.

But that was a rare blip in the home side’s onslaught, and by half-time they could have been five or six to the good.

McMillan pulled off a trio of fine saves in what was deemed first half injury time, a total of 10 minutes, to keep the score at 3-0, twice denying Johnston and left-back Ibou Touray.

Warrington’s need for change was best reflected by the response of manager Paul Carden, who made a triple sub at half time, bringing on recent goalscoring hero Ruben Jerome, Scott Harries and Michael Monaghan.

Within five minutes, the three had combined to give the visitors a way back in to the match.

Jerome’s excellent cross-field ball ignited a counter attack, Harries took it on and he played it across for Monaghan for a simple finish.

That gave 40 minutes for the Yellows to find two or three more, but after a hint of a revival, their effort soon petered out.

In fact, their only shot on target came from an unlikely source, as goalkeeper McMillan’s free-kick from inside his own half caught the wind and took a wicked bounce, forcing opposite number Dan Gyollai to push over.

They did come close 15 minutes from time when a sweet volley from Hattersley dipped just wide with the keeper beaten, but ultimately Nantwich closed out the game.

They added a fourth in injury time, courtesy of Ryan Brooke from the penalty spot after Joe Mwasile was brought down.

The Dabbers return to action on Saturday as they welcome Grantham Town to Weaver Stadium, kick off 3pm.

Nantwich Town: Gyollai, White (Stair), Touray, Jones, Harrison, Hall, Johnston (Obadaki), Riley, Peers (Brooke), Bell, Mwasile. Subs not used: Jones, Howell.