Matt Smith scored the lot as Bristol City planted one foot in the Johnstone's Paint trophy final with a 4-2 first-leg victory at Gillingham this evening.
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Two-goal Charlie McDonald was outshone by the Fulham loanee as the League One high-flyers established a firm Southern Area final advantage to take back to Ashton Gate for February's reverse fixture.
The managerless hosts, who are 18 places below Bristol in the third tier and under the caretaker tenure of Andy Hessenthaler, took a sixth-minute lead at the Priestfield Stadium when McDonald ran onto a long ball and squeezed a shot through Frankie Fielding.
Gillingham were ruing a missed chance by Bradley Dack, who shot straight at Fielding from a McDonald pass, when Smith turned the game around with two goals in eight minutes before the half-hour mark.
The powerful striker nodded a deflected cross into the net to level for City, after skilful work from Jay Emmanuel-Thomas, and then got his head to another delivery from his strike partner to put the Robins 2-1 up.
Smith, who also scored twice against the Gills in the league earlier this season, continued to terrorise them, although there was more deftness to the goal which completed his hat-trick three minutes after the break.
Luke Ayling combined with Scott Wagstaff on the wing, with the latter providing a cut-back which Smith back-heeled past Gillingham keeper Stuart Nelson, who dived to keep out the striker's header moments later.
Emmanuel-Thomas and Aden Flint were also denied by the home stopper as Bristol threatened to run riot, but McDonald put the cat among the pigeons with a 69th-minute effort that was almost a replica of his first.
Appropriately, Smith was to have the last word, though, as he restored the visitors' two-goal lead with his fourth and best of the night - a dipping volley from Luke Freeman's dink over the top five minutes from time.
Joe Fish
