Darren Ferguson hailed his “perfect” Peterborough players after a record-breaking 5-0 derby triumph over Cambridge.

The proud boss saw his side claim their biggest-ever success against their county rivals with a five-star showing.

Posh took charge with three goals in the space of six minutes late in the first half as Ephron Mason-Clark’s 34th and 37th-minute double was soon followed by a deflected Kwame Poku strike.

Any thoughts of a Cambridge comeback were dismissed when Poku pounced again early in the second period following an Archie Collins-led counter-attack before Liam Bennett headed a Joel Randall cross into his own net to pile on more misery for Mark Bonner’s men.

“That is as perfect as it is ever going to get,” admitted Ferguson. “There was not one bad performance from anyone in my team.

“The players stuck to the tactical plan to the ‘T’ so I’m absolutely delighted and all credit to them for that.

“Cambridge are a good team without the ball. They do not concede many goals and no-one has done that to them.

“The first goal was important and we’ve then gone bang, bang. We were so ruthless and from then on we’ve won really comfortably.

“I’ll be honest, I’ve been waiting for that sort of performance from the start of the season and we couldn’t have picked a better day to deliver it.

“It’s a record score in this fixture and it’s brilliant for everyone to achieve something like that. The fans will remember this one for a long time.

“But Mark has done a great job at Cambridge and today is not going to change that.”

Cambridge chief Mark Bonner was full of praise for his side’s conquerors as a promising start gave way to a hiding.

He said: “You could never have said after half-an-hour that the game would end up in the way it did, but Peterborough took it away from us.

“It was a really good game for the first 30 minutes. We started with a good press and intensity, but you can’t really talk about that when the game unravelled in front of our eyes as it did.

“It was done at half-time really. Peterborough had too much for us.

“If you evaluate the goals we conceded, it is just horrible, but the pressure they put on us and the way they use the ball is very good.

“They’re where they are for a reason and it hurts me, more than anyone, to say they’re miles ahead of us.

“They’re a really good side – the best we’ve played. We couldn’t match the technical and athletic quality Peterborough have to create chances.

“We know we’ll get slaughtered, but we’ll have to take it and get on with it.”