ELBURTON Villa underlined their title credentials at Ginsters Marsh on Tuesday night with a powerful performance which blew away Callington’s impressive unbeaten start to the season.

Villa scored four and would have had more but for a man-of-the-match contribution from Cally’s young goalkeeper Jake Mead-Crebbin, who made a series of extraordinary saves, including a penalty save, in the torrential rain.

Callington had conceded only one goal in their opening seven league games but found themselves 3-1 down before half-time and would have been grateful that they weren’t further behind.

To their credit, in awful conditions, the home side rallied in the second half, never let their heads drop, reduced the arrears to 3-2 and had a great chance to equalise.

But Villa grabbed themselves a fourth goal to ease any nerves and in reality should have won by a bigger margin.

Callington retain second place in the table but Villa are only one place below them with a game in-hand and three points adrift of leaders Liskeard Athletic. On the evidence of this performance, Villa will be a threat to the Blues in the race to secure promotion to the Western League.

The drama at Ginsters Marsh started early when Villa were awarded a penalty after only 73 seconds, but Adam MacPherson’s spot kick was comfortably saved by Mead-Crebbin diving low to his left.

But the visitors’ barnstorming start continued as they forced Cally deep into their own half and the inevitable opening goal came in the 13th minute when the evergreen Sam Hughes arrived in the six-yard box to convert MacPherson’s ball in from the left.

Out of the blue Callington were presented with a gift-wrapped equaliser four minutes later after a mistake by Villa keeper Tom Watson. Attempting to play the ball across the penalty area, he left Fin Harrison with an unguarded net to roll the ball into.

It proved to be only a blip as Villa went on to dominate the first half and a superb free-kick from the visitors’ most influential player, Callum Merrin, put them back into the lead after 35 minutes.

Three minutes later Mead-Crebbin made an excellent save to deny Sam Leary a certain goal, but soon after that MacPherson made up for his penalty miss by firing in a low left-foot shot to extend Villa’s lead three minutes before the break.

They started the second half in the same positive mood, pushing for more goals, but Callington’s character came through as they battled to stay in the game and indeed get back into it, which they did in the 61st minute when Harrison’s toe poke was deemed by the linesman to have gone over the line to give him his ninth league goal of the season.

A minute later it was desperately close to being 3-3 as a low cross from the left zipped across the six yard box and substitute George Soper at full stretch just failed to connect with the ball in front of a gaping goal.

Villa knew then that they needed another goal to ease any nerves and they got it in the 71st minute when Connor Rush produced a superb lob from the edge of the penalty area to make it 4-2.

In the last 20 minutes the visitors could have added several more goals but some heroics from Mead-Crebbin kept them out and Cally, who gave new signing Jarrad Woods his debut as a substitute, finished with their heads held high as they refused to buckle.

For Callington it was a night to hold up their hands and accept they came up against a very good team. For Villa this was almost the complete performance and sent out a message to other teams that they are the real deal.

CALLINGTON TOWN: Jake Mead-Crebbin, Adam Patterson (Jarrad Woods, 56), Jack Gill, Harvey Barrett, Harry Southcott (Ben Langton, 68), Connor Pritchard, Alex Jacob (George Soper, 56), Calum Courts (Kieran Ryall, 46), Fin Harrison, Fin Skews (Kevin McCallion, 60), Kieran Prescott.

ELBURTON VILLA: Tom Watson, Sam Leary, Jack Lee, Mike Lucas (George Photoiou, 66), Henry Wilson, Steve Colwell, Connor Rush (James Hamson, 72), Sam Hughes, Callum Merrin (Oliver Newton, 90+5), Adam MacPherson (Charlie Patrick, 83).

Men-of-the-match: Callington Town – Jake Mead-Crebbin; Elburton Villa – Callum Merrin.