Royston Town kept their faint play-off hopes alive on Saturday with a 2-1 home victory against Leighton Town.
The odds are massively stacked against the Crows, however, as they sit 10 points off the final spot with only five games to go.
Early on against Leighton, Ryan Ingrey crashed a shot against the bar following some promising build up play from Kaan Fehmi and Reece Dobson, and Ross Collins blasted a decent chance high over the bar.
Hasty, sometimes frantic, build-up play saw little quality in front of goal and this lack of cutting edge allowed Leighton to get more into the game.
On the quarter-hour mark Royston keeper George Lawton was called into action to make a superb diving save to keep the opposition out.
The Crows continued to toil and were often halted by minor spoiling fouls that did nothing to aid their own tempo of build-up play.
Leighton put in some dangerous long balls including some impressive long throws that caused concern, but Lawton stood tall with some good handling, ably supported aerially by Joe De La Salle and Ryan Wharton.
Up the other end De La Salle flicked a header just wide and Dobson was coming more into this game with some tricky menacing runs on goal.
With the game meandering to half-time, midfielder Ingrey produced a moment of magic to break the deadlock.
A period of home team possession play worked the ball to Ingrey in a central position who hit a left foot 30-yard screamer high into the top left hand corner, giving Leighton keeper Matt Griggs no chance whatsoever.
The second half followed a similar pattern. There was no doubting Royston’s effort and endeavour, but the final pass or shot just eluded them on numerous occasions.
Two early chances with the ball being played through the left side channel saw Dobson and then Luke Robins shoot across the goal.
Boss Steve Castle made his first substitution on 56 minutes replacing Collins with Robbie Nightingale and 10 minutes later returning striker Robbie Mason was introduced for Dobson and Ryan Lockett was brought on for Ingrey to add more impetus.
A second goal was scored on 73 minutes with another piece of individual brilliance. A long ball was fed through to Fehmi and his first-touch control was superb allowing himself a split second to release a low left foot effort under pressure from a desperate defender’s tackle, and the shot sped just inside Griggs’ right hand post.
Leighton Town scored four minutes later when Enzo Silvestri headed in to make the last 10 minutes a tense time that could have seen a late equaliser, but overall it was a fair result.
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