EYNESBURY Rovers beat second placed Northampton Sileby Rangers after an impressive away performance on Saturday. Rovers started well in their first match for three weeks, with Scott Kingsbury being denied by home goalkeeper James Stirling in the second m

EYNESBURY Rovers beat second placed Northampton Sileby Rangers after an impressive away performance on Saturday.

Rovers started well in their first match for three weeks, with Scott Kingsbury being denied by home goalkeeper James Stirling in the second minute. Dwayne Rankin was active around the box and Jamie Graham forced two good saves from Stirling.

The hosts also had chances, with a Nick Worley header saved by Dave Benny and Craig Heard heading just over from a free kick. Heard scored after 34 minutes, but his celebrations were cut short when the goal was ruled out for offside.

Rangers began to dominate at the start of the second half but could not turn their possession into chances, forcing only two saves from Benny. The visitors started to rely on counter-attacking football to hit Northampton on the break, and after 73 minutes Jamie Graham and Dan Tyler combined to set up Dwayne Rankin, who swept the ball home from ten yards.

Eynesbury finished the game on top, with Stirling saving from Rankin and twice from Graham. In the second minute of stoppage time the visitors secured the win when Rankin's pass from the right wing picked out Graham who fired past Stirling to make it 2-0 at the final whistle.

Eynesbury Rovers co-manager Pat O'Keefe said he was "well pleased with the result". "If we hadn't won we'd be nine points away from the leaders but we're back in the title race now so we've done really well," he said.

"It wasn't an unexpected result because we know we are one of the top sides in this league, we just need to be consistent. We always raise our game against the top sides but drop it against the bottom sides.

"There wasn't much in the game as they had a couple of good chances and both keepers made some very good saves. At the end of the day we finished our chances and edged it at the end of the game to deserve the win.

"It was always a worry that they might equalise as they had a couple of extra men going forward and tried to push up but we hit them on the break and scored two. We knew how they played and we snuffed a couple of their players out and went man on man.

"We want to win as many games as we play and we are still in the [Hunts Senior] Cup. We watched St Ives in the Vase and I think they will be more determined to beat us now after that defeat and we are the underdogs. We want to get as high a finish as we can in the league and if we keep playing like we have in the last two games then hopefully we can go on a good run.

"We brought in two inexperienced lads [Dave Lenihan and David Watts] to cover for a couple that were out injured [Ben Daly and Sam Kingston] and they did extremely well. They and the other youngsters are the future of this club and we can use them when we need to. It's good to be having local lads coming through the ranks and doing well as we had five in the team at the moment."

Eynesbury Rovers next host St Ives Town in the semi-finals of the Hunts Senior Cup on Saturday 28.