by Luke Cawdell

Andy Hessenthaler hailed his five-star Gillingham team after they cruised to victory at Stockport.

A hat-trick from Cody McDonald and goals for Curtis Weston and Andy Barcham helped the Gills to maximum points on the road.

“I’m delighted,” said the Gills manager. “It was a fantastic performance and to score five goals away from home against anyone was a fantastic achievement.

“We are disappointed we gave the goal away, but to be fair it was a fantastic ball in. It just brushed off the fella and went in. We couldn’t do much about it.

“It was a nice performance, it’s another away win and it’s six wins out of seven. We can’t ask any more from the boys.”

And the Gills managed it despite in-form front-man Adebayo Akinfenwa missing out with a groin injury after failing a fitness test on Saturday.

Hessenthaler said: “We had to change our ways of playing a bit. We gave big Bayo every chance to be fit.

“The key for us was the second half. We started quite sloppy in the second half and we just didn’t get going, but we scored on the counter-attack and then we just went on from there.”

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