Argyle 3
Martin 26, Connolly 47, Norris 49

Norwich City 0

THE stay-aways will regret missing this one.

Argyle's emphatic victory over Norwich might have been predictable, but it was nevertheless a match which produced more than a few I-was-there moments, not least of all one of the rarest of all sightings - a Paul Connolly goal.

Shelly netted the Pilgrims' second goal, a close-range header, for a first ever career goal in what was his 149th appearance for the Greens.

It broke a poor Norwich side's will and settled the nerves of an Argyle team that had only Lee Martin's strike midway through the first half to show for an utterly dominant display.

Mind you, the Manchester United man's goal was worth the admission money on its own - a wonderful overhead kick from a Connolly throw that owed as much to his speed of thought as the execution.

With Norris adding a third as the crowd was still bubbling over Connolly's goal, Argyle were able to coast into the international break with heads - and league position - high. City were shocking, true, but this was still their heaviest defeat of the season.

There were no real surprises in Ian Holloway's starting 11, which differed by only one midfielder from the side that had started the previous Tuesday's come-from-behind 1-1 draw at Colchester.

Hungarian left-winger Péter Halmosi, who had created such an impact at Layer Road after coming off the bench, started in place of Nadjim Abdou, which meant a return to the right flank for Lee Martin and Norris switching back into the midfield engine room.

Conversely, for his first away match as Norwich manager, Glenn Roeder had made four changes to the side that had lost 3-1 at Carrow Road in midweek to Championship leaders Watford.

Roeder, having decided to send on-loan striker John Hartson back to West Bromwich Albion and been thwarted in his attempts to borrow Shola Ameobi from Newcastle, turned to Chris Martin - the owner of perhaps the most lurid boots in the Championship - to share the attacking duties with ex-Holloway man Jamie Cureton.

The other three changes were all in midfield, where only Darel Russell survived to make the cross-country trip to the Westcountry. Luke Chadwick succumbed to a hamstring problem, while Jimmy Smith and Frenchman Julien Brellier dropped to the substitutes' bench.

Michael Spillane - whose parents must have a sense of humour to rival that of Argyle youth supreme Gordon Bennett's - and Lee Croft moved in the opposite direction, while Ian Murray came in from the cold.

Argyle put Norwich under early pressure with three consecutive corners that had the visitors struggling for air. They survived, not least of all because of the bravery and commitment of skipper Jason Shackell in charging down Norris's shot with a most tender area.

Krisztián Timár had been teetering on the abyss of a suspension for more than four games, so the appointment of a referee who averages more than three cards a game was always like to put him out of his misery. So it proved, eight minutes in, although his upending of Cureton deserved little sympathy.

Norwich looked tidy but created nothing to alarm Argyle, whose greatest worry came when Cureton charged down a kick-out from Romain Larrieu. The ball, though, ran out of play.

At the other end, David Marshall looked even less comfortable, spilling a drive from Martin with Barry Hayles inches away from snaffling up the crumbs, and then being left nowhere by Sylvan Ebanks-Blake's backheel after great wing-work by Halmosi. Fortunately, the ball hit him.

The goalkeeper's biggest knee-trembler came when on-loan Birmingham City centre-back Martin Taylor fed him a backpass which he clearly did not fancy. Hayles did, however, and was on the situation like a fat boy after a kebab in the small hours of a Sunday morning, with Norwich fortunate to escape with another corner.

Eventually, the pressure told, not, though, from a flag-kick, but from the next best thing. Paul Connolly's long throw-in in the Chisholm Lounge corner was met by the head of Shackell, who deflected the ball from near post to far where Martin impudently steered the ball home.

Norwich's woes increased when Taylor was forced out of the action shortly after the goal. Brellier entered the fray, with Spillane dropping into central defence, and the shuffle did little to help a defence which was rapidly defining the word 'jittery'.

Left-back Simon Lappin's too-short back-pass was symptomatic of the Canaries' general malaise, although Hayles failed to capitalize, hitting the ball into the side-netting after rounding Marshall.

Norwich tried to play their way back into the game, but their defence creaked in agony every time the Greens put them under pressure. It was remarkable that they made it to the break only one goal in arrears: Argyle's worry was that they had reached the break only one goal ahead.

It was not a worry that lasted long - five minutes into the second half, they had trebled their lead and were home and hosed.

You know how much you are bossing a game when Connolly turns up in the penalty area ahead of Hayles and Ebanks-Blake, but the Pilgrims' right-back did just that after linking well with Martin on the right flank and carrying on going before heading home with the sort of aplomb that made you wonder why he had never tried it before.

With David Worrell having occupied the right-back slot before Connolly, it was the first goal by an Argyle player in that position this century.

In the very next attack, Ebanks-Blake ran on to Hayles' dummy on the left flank and pulled the ball back from the bye-line for Norris to drive home a first-time shot from ten yards.

Argyle continued to surf the wave and Ebanks-Blake should have added a fourth after Hayles played him clean in, but, amazingly, he fired over the crossbar from barely three yards.

Being picky, the Greens took their foot off the gas and allowed Norwich to make a better fist of things than they should have.

Jermaine Easter came on for Hayles with half an hour to play, but Argyle had killed off the game and, strive as he might, the Welsh international could not breathe any life into it.

Krisztián Timar had a header chalked off for offside, Martin went through his repertoire of tricks to keep people entertained - except traumatized Norwich left-back Lappin, who left the field with twisted blood - and Marcel Seip ran unopposed the length of the pitch before nearly converting.

Evidence, all, that this game had long ago ceased to be a match.

Argyle (4-4-2): 1 Romain Larrieu; 2 Paul Connolly, 5 Krisztián Timár, 19 Marcel Seip, 17 Lee Hodges (22 Dan Gosling 88); 29 Lee Martin, 4 Lilian Nalis (26 Nadjim Abdou 83), 7 David Norris, 16 Péter Halmosi; 10 Barry Hayles (capt, 36 Jermaine Easter 66), 9 Sylvan Ebanks-Blake. Substitutes (not used): 13 Mathias Kouo-Doumbe, 14 Rory Fallon.

Booked: Timár 8.

Norwich City (4-4-2): 1 David Marshall; 2 Jon Otsemobor , 4 Jason Shackell, 5 Martin Taylor (8 Julien Brellier 34), 19 Simon Lappin; 15 Ian Murray, 20 Darel Russell, 28 Michael Spillane, 7 Lee Croft (22 David Strihavka 79); 10 Jamie Cureton, 35 Chris Martin (14 Chris Brown half-time). Substitutes (not used): 12 Matthew Gilks (gk), 18 Jimmy Smith.

Booked: Russell 29, Shackell 54, Brellier 85.

Referee: Darren Drysdale (Lincolnshire).

Attendance: 11,222 (566 away).