On an afternoon with the sun shining, a breeze keeping everyone cool and a playing surface that could not be faulted this, from a Ware point of view, was an almost perfect performance.

Nobody in an amber shirt had anything approaching an off day. Mackye Townsend-West even without the superbly executed, goal-saving tackle on Lanrewaju Balogun near the end of the game, fully justified his manager’s plaudits from the Barton game. Meanwhile, his partner in central defence, Lewis Thomas, was solid and made one timely intervention in the first half to end a promising Hertford attack. Mitch Hahn was strong in midfield and the wide men always a danger.

In fact the whole team looked determined and ran for 90 minutes, chasing and harrying their opponents every time they had possession. By contrast Hertford were playing the ball around at the back looking for openings but too often not finding them and losing possession.

Standing out at the back for Ware was Stef Georgiou who never put a foot wrong at full back and had complete control over Harry Williams the Hertford left sided player who was substituted shortly after half time. His replacement fared no better. He might easily have been named man of the match but when a player scores four goals in a game as Jon Clements did then there is only one destination for that award. It looks like he's already taken a match ball home.

Clements’ four goals were the first by a Ware player from open play in a competitive match since John Frendo in January 2006 at Dorking. They came at regular intervals too with just Joe Dearman interrupting the sequence six minutes into the second half. Even then Clements was on hand to make the assist before Dearman’s shot hit a defender and rebounded onto the Ware man from where a ricochet took the ball under Daniel Purdue in the Hertford goal.

Clements opened the scoring on five minutes. Ben Siggers had already put a dangerous cross into the Hertford area from the left that was scrambled away for a corner when a minute later Johnny Allotey did the same from the right. No scramble this time as Clements rose to head beyond Purdue for the opener.

He scored his second on 18 minutes when the Hertford defence failed to deal with a cross and the number nine converted with a low shot to Purdue’s left. It became three just before half time as Clements benefitted from another mistake in the Hertford defence. First the ball was lost to Sam Mayuma whose shot cannoned off Purdue’s right hand post and then Hertford failed to clear the rebound giving Clements the chance to muscle the defence out of possession and score.

Goal number four came just past the hour when a ball forward bounced awkwardly between a defender and keeper giving the alert Clements the chance to intervene with a lofted shot that dropped into the net. No Ware player had scored four against Hertford since Johnson in 1946.

Now, I did say the performance by Ware was almost perfect. There was one blip and that was Hertford’s equaliser on 13 minutes. A corner on the Ware right saw Ben Herd lurking out wide and unmarked by any Ware player. The ball was played to him and he had the time and space to pick his spot in the penalty area. There he found Billy Mardell-Smith to head home under pressure. It was a well worked goal and at a crucial time but Ware should have been alert to it.

Hertford also mounted something of a surge in the dying minutes of the game but the Ware defence, calm and composed for the most part, held firm with Jamie Head always on hand with timely interventions and saves to round off a successful two-match loan period. Fred Burbidge is expected to be recovered from injury in time for Saturday’s visit to Leighton Town.

For the moment though Ware can bask in a job well done that takes them to fourth in the table, at least for 24 hours.

Ware: Jamie Head, Stef Georgiou, Ben Siggers, Lewis Thomas, Mackye Townsend-West, Mitch Hahn (Tom Kay 76mins), Johnny Allotey (Freddy Moncur 69mins), Max Branville, Jon Clements, Sam Mayuma, Joe Dearman (Isaac Evans 89mins). Unused subs: Ethan Gannon, Nikolay Popov.