Royston Town boss Steve Castle has been pleased with ‘free scoring’ Crows, after they battered Gosport Borough 5-0 on Saturday at Garden Walk writes Toby Miles.

The Royston boss hailed his side’s new-found belief for their excellent run of form.

The Crows have won six of their last seven matches, drawing the other, since losing to Eastbourne Borough in the FA Trophy in November.

Castle said: “I’m very pleased. We’ve got more belief and I think we’ve settled into the league now.

“We’re creating more and being more clinical. Our performance levels have risen and we’re more consistent.

“We’ve had a fantastic Christmas period, it’s very positive.”

The newly-promoted Crows have won all four of their matches since the festive season, scoring 13 and conceding one, moving themselves within five points of the Evo-Stik Southern Premier play-off positions.

The Crows hold at least four games in hand on seven of the nine other teams in the top 10 and are in with a good shout of making the play-offs.

In their two next league games, Royston travel to Dunstable Town and Kings Langley, two teams firmly in the bottom four.

So, could a second successive promotion be on the cards?

Canny Castle downplayed the prospect, saying: “We’re not shouting from the rooftops just yet but we’ve got some winnable games coming up.

“If we can win both of those we could start pushing for promotion.

“There’s a lot of football to be played and there’ll be no predictions coming out of me just yet.”

Saturday was a bad time for bottom of the league Boro to travel to Garden Walk.

After having plenty of chances in the first third of the game, Royston finally opened the scoring with Sam Corcoran on 32 minutes. A minute later free-scoring Marriott flicked in put the home side 2-0 up.

John Frendo added the third after 40 minutes, making it 3-0 at half-time. Frendo completed his double, rounding keeper Tom Price and slotting in after 54 minutes. The rout was completed in injury time. Price fouled Marriott in the box before the former Stevenage man buried his second penalty in two games. However, looking ahead, Castle cautioned: “We want to avoid complacency. We’ve had performances earlier in the season where we didn’t roll over teams when we should have done.

“Hopefully results like Gosport will continue.”