Goals from Shane Oakley, Michael Begg, Sammy Knott and Junior Appiah rounded off a superb display of attacking football, as well as a much more assured performance at the back with Jay Leader returning to the back line alongside Bradley Thomas.

The hosts mustered little to bother Jack Giddens in the Aveley goal as he notched up his second clean sheet in three outings, but Giddens was still called upon to make a smart save from a deflected effort midway through the second half to make sure of the shut-out.

After two draws in their opening two pre-season games the Millers started the game against the side from the Kent Hurlimann Premier League brightly with a succession of early corners.

One of the key attributes of the Aveley team last season was their speed on the counter attack and it was a counter attack started by Ade Cole that produced the Millers first chance after Sos Yao was played in before being brought down on the edge of the box.

Danny Hopkins stepped up to take the resulting free kick but floated it comfortably over the bar.

Justin Gardner would have been pleased to see Jay Leader and Bradley Thomas return to the heart of Aveley’s back line after both being missing from the 4-4 draw against Corinthians on Saturday.

The calming influence of Leader showed as the visitors coped well with Erith’s attacks and Thomas looked at ease in his first outing of pre-season.

With the quarter hour mark approaching Teddy Nesbitt came within a hair’s breadth of opening the scoring, hitting the crossbar with an over-hit cross from the left.

After coming so close to opening the scoring, Shane Oakley went one better and put the Millers in front in the 24th minute.

Cole played a ball into space down the right which looked to have been over-hit, but Oakley used his pace to blister past the back-tracking defender and beat the Erith goalie to the ball.

The Millers number nine still had work to do after going well wide of the target. But the striker managed to cut back inside just enough to create an angle and find the bottom corner to put the away side in front.

Jack Giddens in the Aveley goal had remained largely untroubled in the first half, but the Millers goalie had to be alert when Leader accidentally headed the ball over Giddens and towards goal.

Giddens recovered quickly enough to get back just in time to grab the ball off the line and preserve his clean sheet.

With the half time whistle approaching Aveley felt they should have had a penalty when a corner was flicked towards goal by an Erith defender and then cleared by the arm of another defender on the line.

And right on half time Nesbitt, who had been a constant threat down the left, curled a ball into the box from the by-line which was flicked over by Oakley with the score remaining at 1-0 as the half time whistle blew.

The Millers came out in the second half looking to press home their dominance and were almost gifted a goal when the Erith substitute goalkeeper failed to gather a cross, fumbling it wide for a corner.

From the resulting corner, Leader got a near post header on target only to see it frantically cleared off the line.

The Millers didn’t have to wait long though to double their lead thanks to some quick thinking from second half substitute Michael Begg.

After Cole had been chopped down just outside the penalty area, Begg had the presence of mind to take the free kick quickly, looping the ball over the goalkeeper and in to make it 2-0.

Aveley were really starting to turn the screw now they had their two goal leader and almost made it three when Ross Wall went clear of the back line, only to find the legs of the advancing goalkeeper with his strike.

Erith needed a large stroke of luck to get themselves back into a match that Aveley were well in control of and they almost got that when a shot from their number 11 deflected off Leader, with Giddens already committed to diving to his left.

The Aveley ‘keeper somehow managed to flick a hand up to claw the ball away and keep it at 2-0.

It was as close as the hosts would come to salvaging anything from this game as within a minute of going close to reducing the arrears to one, Aveley made it three through Sammy Knott.

Ross Wall played the youngster in with a lovely first turn pass round the corner and Knott flashed a shot across the goalkeeper and in off the far post for his second goal in as many games in pre-season.

The home side were continuously frustrated by their visitors and a daisy-cutter of an effort that was comfortably saved by Giddens from their number 11 was the best they could muster in the closing stages.

Gardner called for the Millers to ‘finish with a bit of quality’ and they duly delivered as on the ninetieth minute Junior Appiah made it four.

Wall forced the Erith ‘keeper into a smart save low to his left with a strike across goal. The rebound fell kindly to Appiah to smash home to put the icing on the cake.