Royston Town took their winning league run to seven games and subsequently moved to the Southern League Division One Central summit with a 2-0 victory at Beaconsfield SYCOB on Saturday.

Boss Steve Castle fielded an unchanged line-up for the game as they looked to pull off a tricky victory on the road.

In a dour and impotent first half, both sides cancelled each other out with ambition to play being seen from the two teams but the stoppers on the field were dominant and no real chances on goal were created or evident.

Possession was surrendered too cheaply and the attempt at higher pace football suffered with poor short passing and forced breakdown of play and at half time the game was still there to be taken by either club.

No interval changes from the Crows, but certainly a different attitude was seen at the start of the half and early away team pressure looked more tangible and the Rams were mostly camped in their own defensive third.

The opening goal came on 50 minutes when Rhys Hoenes found himself central to the goal about to pull the trigger on a bouncing ball and was clumsily prevented from making the shot by a lunge form behind and the referee pointed to the spot.

Rob Mason stepped up and whilst it was not the most convincingly struck penalty the ball squirmed under diving keeper, Aaron Wesley, into the bottom right hand corner.

The referee unfortunately started to play up his part in this competitive, but fairly fought, match with some unnecessary stoppages when play could have been allowed to flow, some cheap yellow cards for both sides and with each team trying to up the quality on view the officials hindered progress in every department.

The away team lead should have been doubled on 65 minutes when a Royston free kick was delivered and Mason won a good header with Bradshaw connecting from the flick with a well-hit shot that was bravely blocked and the ball fell to Scott Bridges who couldn’t quite untangle his feet to get any power on his own shot.

Ron Yates played an important part in this ultimate victory when on 75 minutes he produced an outstanding point blank save from a sharp spin and close in shot from a Beaconsfield striker that he superbly deflected onto the post and away.

Stuart Bridges was replaced by George Powell and a re-jig saw Bradshaw step up the field a bit and Powell line up at centre back alongside Liam McDevitt.

The second goal came for the Crows on 81 minutes as a slide rule pass from Scott Bridges found Hoenes running through and the lively attacker had a split second to look up and perfectly execute a fine lob over the approaching Wesley for it to bounce once and finish high into the net for a top class finish.

Kaan Fehmi made a more than welcome return to the first team as he replaced Mason late on and as the game played out, the industrious Ryan Ingrey was pole-axed for a second time and rather than risk him further, Chris Watters came on for the last five minutes and this hard-fought and important seventh consecutive league victory was secured.