STEETON moved within four points of the play-offs and extended their unbeaten run over 90 minutes to ten games with a hard-fought 1-0 victory away at Nelson on Saturday, writes Joshua Chapman.

In a North West County League First Division win that was described as “ugly” by manager Roy Mason, the Chevrons were below the standards that they had set themselves over the previous weeks but did enough to get the job done and return home with the three points.

The game was played in a competitive nature throughout despite being low on quality, and it showed early on as the referee was forced to calm tempers after Jake Lloyd appeared to slap Nathan Tayo on the top of his head.

Nelson had the better of the early chances and thought they had the afternoon’s opening goal, but Steven Douasse saw his curling effort superbly tipped wide of the post for a corner by the outstretched arm of Stuart Cross.

The visitors would escape falling behind once more as Jak McKinley nearly saw a cross turned into his own goal by Jonny Hodgkinson.

Steeton though grew into the game and had a golden opportunity to equalise, but nobody got into the area to meet Andy Briggs' delivery across the face of the goal.

Great link-up play between Jake Townsend and Toby Jeffrey nearly produced an opener, but the former saw his shot blocked with the latter smashing his follow-up effort wide of the near post.

Briggs himself though scored the first, and only, goal of the afternoon to take his personal haul of the season to 18.

From a cross goal kick, a Nelson defender took a heavy touch and lost control of the ball.

The Steeton skipper nabbed the ball from his foot and raced round before coolly finishing with the outside of the boot around the keeper into the far bottom corner.

The home side then escaped two penalty shouts before half-time as Arale Mohamed was felled on the edge of the area before Briggs himself was inexplicably denied a spot kick after being taken down from behind as he raced through on goal.

After the restart, it was Nelson who had the best chance of the opening exchanges a cross from the right wing appeared to be dipping inside the near post, forcing Cross to turn the ball onto the crossbar.

Despite being on top, the hosts must have thought that it was not going to be their day as two players were forced off through injury in quick succession and the visitors defensive line dealing with anything that came their way.

Nelson was then reduced to ten men as Harrison Hull, who had only been introduced as a substitute 28 minutes earlier, was shown a straight red card for brining Mohamed down just outside the area as the forward raced through on goal.

The dismissal rejuvenated the home side, and they took the game by the scruff of the neck as they looked for an equaliser with Tayo blocking an on-target Holt free kick.

And despite winning a series of set pieces in and around the Steeton area, the hosts couldn’t take the most of any opportunity to get a share of the spoils at Little Wembley.

The closest they came was in the fourth minute of injury time when the ball found its way to the near post but both Tayo and Hodgkinson threw their bodies and heads in front of the effort to block and clear.

From there, Steeton showed good game management to see out the victory, but Briggs was denied a second goal late on by a superb low save by the opposition keeper.