St Ives Town were knocked off the top of the Southern League Division One (Central) table despite extending their unbeaten run today.

Jared Cunniff hit an equaliser with nine minutes remaining in a 1-1 draw against Uxbridge at ProEdge Westwood Road - a seventh successive league match without defeat for Saints.

But it wasn’t enough to prevent Ricky Marheineke’s side, who had fallen behind just after the hour, being leapfrogged by Chalfont St Peter in the standings. Saints drop to second, a point behind the new leaders.

Marheineke said: “It’s a point gained in my opinion after being behind.

“My decision to change the formation didn’t work as well as I had hoped, but it is a case of having to make tough decisions due to having a lot of players injured.

“We didn’t really look like scoring, but fortunately Jared popped up with a really important goal.

“On reflection Uxbridge were the better team over the 90 minutes.

“They defended well against the wind in the first half when limiting us to very few chances.

“And they also played better with the wind than we had done without creating too many clearcut opportunities.

“But, as has been the case so many times of late, our character shone through to keep our unbeaten run going.

“It was nice to be top of the table, but we were well aware it probably wouldn’t last.

“We have to let the league take care of itself while focusing on continuing to hit our targets during the season.”

Saints continued to be troubled by a lengthy injury list with wideman Phil Draycott and midfielder Peter Clark missing today along with long-term absentees Luke Knight and Jack Higgs.

Striker Staurt Eason did return from a lay-off as a substitute, but he must undergo and MRI scan next weekend which Marheineke expects to reveal the need for an operation on an abdominal problem.