Kevin Philip's hat-trick inspires Palace win

Started by Folami David, Mar 06, 2013, 04:09 AM

Folami David

Veteran striker Kevin Phillips grabbed a hat-trick to take Crystal Palace to within two points of the Championship automatic promotion spots.
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The 39-year-old converted a penalty in first-half stoppage time after Glenn Murray's earlier spot-kick was saved.
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Phillips then scored twice in two minutes early in the second half to punish promotion rivals Hull further.
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Jay Simpson pulled one back, but Wilfried Zaha added a Palace fourth before David Meyler's consolation.
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Phillips, signed on loan in January from manager Ian Holloway's former club Blackpool, was making his first Palace start.
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He had wanted to take Palace's first penalty, awarded in the 30th minute when midfielder Jonathan Williams collected Dean Moxey's ball into the area and was bundled over by Meyler.
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Regular penalty-taker Murray, the country's top scorer with 28 goals this season, stepped up instead but keeper David Stockdale dived to his right to pull off a fine save.
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Stockdale had looked nervy in the opening stages and almost gifted Palace an early lead when dropping Jacob Butterfield's cross at the feet of Peter Ramage, but his shot was hacked off the line by Ahmed Elmohamady.
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The keeper redeemed himself with the penalty save, but could not repeat his heroics when a linesman judged that Jack Hobbs had handled Murray's shot, and referee Mark Heywood pointed to the spot again.