FORMER Plymouth Parkway centre-half Rob Farkins made his Buckland Athletic debut as Paul Froude’s men thumped Wellington 6-1 last night.

Farkins joined up with the Bucks on Monday after his release from the newly promoted Southern League outfit, slotting straight into the starting XI at Homers Heath as the home side registered two wins from two.

Midfielder Nathan Cooper scored a hat-trick to take his Western League tally to five goals in two games, while Cieran Bridger, Charlie Johansen, and Frazer Clark were on target as well – the latter also putting through his own net.

The hosts hit the front with barely 10 minutes played when a pinpoint ball from the back found Josh Webber on the left.

He cut back for midfielder Bridger to fire an effort low into the corner past Wellington stopper Chandler Hallet.

Three minutes later and the visitors had their first and only real sights of goal – Harry Gardner firing straight at Andy Collings and the Buckland stopper coming off his line quickly to smother at the feet of Josh Baker.

Buckland skipper Rich Groves would poke an effort wide of the target before his side doubled their lead with 20 minutes gone.

Another fierce strike from Bridger was deflected straight to Cooper, who continued his hot streak in front of goal by finding the net.

It took another 10 minutes for Johansen to add a third goal – a good run into space down the right resulting in a calm finish underneath Hallet.

Wellington managed to claw back a lifeline before the interval when Clark turned skipper Glen Wright’s cross into his own net.

But the three-goal cushion was restored after the interval when Clark’s header from a corner at the right end was bundled in.

Groves had a curling effort tipped away by Hallet before Cooper got his second of the game with 20 minutes to go, thanks largely to good hold-up play by Johansen.

And after Groves had a free-kick saved in time added on, Cooper was on hand to capitalise from the corner and take home the match ball.

The Bucks’ season had already started in thrilling fashion on Saturday with a 4-3 win away at Bridgwater United.

Cooper put his side ahead on 12 minutes, only for Harry Horton to level things up again midway through the first half.

Groves’ penalty after a handball in the box restored the travellers’ lead once more, before almost immediately Jack Taylor headed in at the other end to make it 2-2.

But two quick-fire goals from Johansen and Cooper proved enough to send all three points back to Devon – despite a late strike from Adnan Hiroli making things interesting.

After Tuesday’s match, Buckland boss Froude couldn’t hide his happiness at securing maximum points from the opening two fixtures.

‘We obviously took note of Wellington’s result on Saturday [a 3-3 draw at Mousehole] and respected the fact that they’re a good footballing team.

‘We were quite ruthless going forward which gave us a platform to manage the game in the way we did.

‘In a perfect world we may dominate the ball a bit more than we did tonight, but we respected Wellington and their ability on the ball.

‘Six points from six is obviously a really good start.’

On the addition of Farkins, Froude explained: ‘As soon as I heard [that he’d left Parkway] I consulted my phone, got his number up and gave him a call. I think he had between 15 and 20 clubs coming for him.

‘He’s got history with Nick Milton Snr, our head of development, and he knows Danny [Gaze] and myself really well from times gone by.

‘It wasn’t a hard sell in terms of him coming to Buckland Athletic, but in any case we hat to work quite hard to get him given the level of interest that he had.’

And he added: ‘He needs no introduction to people. Tonight was his kind of game, really – he just soaked things up.

‘I don’t need to tell people how good Rob Farkins is, they can see that themselves. He’s given everyone a boost and we’re not missing too many pieces of the jigsaw puzzle, I don’t think.’

This Saturday Buckland take a break from Western League action to entertain Exmouth Town in the FA Cup Extra Preliminary Round (3pm).

‘I think we’ve struggled a little bit in the FA Cup, to be honest,’ said Froude. ‘I don’t think we’ve gone past the preliminary rounds for a few years now.

‘We’re at home, there should be a good crowd and there’s a carrot of a Southern League team to come here if we did progress.

‘It’s obviously great for the club financially and commercially to do do well in that competition, so we’ll take it as a really important game, which it is.’