Valley made a dominant start to their league campaign with a six-goal win at Pinchbeck United on the opening day.

Town had thumped home of five of these by the interval, with Liam Francis, Dylan Parker and Danico Johnson ultimately each helping themselves to a brace as Rugby kicked off the new UCL season in style.

Boss Carl Adams made just one change from the disappointing FA Cup exit earlier in the week, with Keenah Rosser making a return outing in place of Justin Marsden - meaning a more advanced role for Caine Elliott in midfield.

There were only three minutes on the clock when Francis gave the visitors the lead by heading home a Johnson corner.

Sloppy defending from the home side saw Valley make it two shortly after, with Charlie Evans cutting the ball into the path of Parker for a neat finish.

Town's early dominance continued, and Kurtis Revan's deflected effort was then turned around the post for a corner by United keeper Ben Martin.

Rugby's third came as a result of an uncharacteristic surge upfield from Francis, which saw him first execute a neat one-two with Parker and then find himself through on goal, before slipping the ball past Martin.

It was four-nil after Johnson had demonstrated a nice first touch to beat his man and then drill a shot into the corner of the net on 35 minutes.

Johnson was on-target again shortly after when again showing good feet to carve himself out another opportunity - this time powering home into the roof of the net.

Pinchbeck started the new half in slightly more promising fashion, with Mario Neves poking his effort straight at Sam Lomax and sub Kye Dawes testing the Rugby keeper further.

Evans had a couple of chances for the visitors, but his first sailed over the bar and the second was comfortably taken by Martin, whilst Parker should have done better when clean through but he also put a weak shot straight at the keeper.

Evans's twenty yarder carried more threat but went just wide of the post, before Valley made it six courtesy of Parker after Lee Thomas had taken advantage of a mistake from Daniel Worthington to surge forward and then cross for Parker to add a simple close range tap-in.

As the United began to tire further, even more space continued to be afforded to the Town front-line and Lewis Padmore twice missed the target in the closing stages as his quest for a first competitive goal for the club continued.

Valley Line-up: Lomax; Francis, Rosser, Recci; L Thomas, Evans, Hancocks, Elliott (C Thomas), Revan (O'Neill); Johnson (Padmore), Parker. Subs: Marsden, Hill. Booked: None.

Pinchbeck line-up: Martin, Cottingham, Eyes, Worthington, Ramsden, Dunn, Abayomi, Neves, Onyon, Krashiqi, Kacirek. Subs: Daws, Shores, Taylor.