Oxford United saved their best for last as they completed the year's home fixtures with their best win of the season yesterday.

Roy Hunter celebrates his goalTheir 3-0 destruction of fellow promotion hopefuls Bournemouth was the first time in 2002 that they had scored three times at the Kassam Stadium.

Boss Ian Atkins was delighted by the standard of play, and the quality of goals from Dean Whitehead, Roy Hunter and David Oldfield, as United ended the Cherries' nine-match unbeaten run.

Victory took Oxford's own undefeated run to seven matches - six of them wins - and sets them up perfectly for tomorrow's visit to Division 3 leaders Rushden.

They were helped on their way to a Boxing Day cracker against Bournemouth by the sending-off, after just 13 minutes, of Bournemouth midfielder Marcus Browning, who was shown a red card for a second bookable offence.

He idiotically kicked the ball away when the whistle had gone, less than a minute after being booked for a foul.

Atkins said: "It's never easy playing against ten men, especially ten men of a very good side and I rate Bournemouth the best in the division.

"Once we got the got the ball down and passed it, and passed it with a purpose, rather than just for the sake of it, I thought we dominated the whole game."

He added: "I was a bit critical of them last Saturday against Exeter, but I was just disappointed to concede a penalty in the 89th minute.

"Today they were three magnificent goals. We work exceptionally hard in training on set-pieces, but this year we've only scored from a long throw and penalties. If we'd scored more from corners and free-kicks, we would be top of the league now.

"We work very hard to score the goals that we do score in general play and each goal was terrific play and movement."

Bournemouth's assistant manager, Peter Grant, felt the red card changed the match.

"We're disappointed with the result, but more disappointed with the referee's performance and inconsistency," he said.

"Browning was apparently booked for kicking the ball away, yet when one of the Oxford players did the same thing, nothing happened."

Browning claimed: "My momentum took me forward and I was passing the ball to Danny Thomas, not kicking it away. I couldn't believe it when the ref sent me off."

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