HIGHWORTH Town avenged their FA Trophy defeat to Cinderford Town by beating the same opposition 2-1 away from home in the league on Saturday.

Goals from Chris Taylor and Jacob Davidge, as well as a penalty save from Connor Johns, put the Worthians on course for all three points before the hosts halved the deficit late on to make it a nervous injury time.

But Jeff Roberts’ side held on to claim their first win in the league since September 4 against one of the teams hunting a spot in the play-off places.

The Worthians manager admitted his side were fortunate at times, but felt they were more than deserving of taking all three points back to the Save on Tyres Stadium.

Roberts said: “We’ve played them three times in a week now, so we know they’re a good side.

“They play long, diagonal balls and their front two are very lively. They play a number 10 as well who drops in the hole and tries to cause problems, but we did well.

“We knew after the last two games that we had to up our game a little bit, so we went back to 4-4-2 in order to try and get at them a little bit.

“We did that and played some good football in the first half.

“We rode our luck a little bit too, but I thought we fully deserved the three points today.”

Highworth’s win moved them up to 10th in the 20-team division – their fourth success from nine games so far.

Roberts is happy with the progress his team are making, given their relative inexperience compared to the rest of the teams in the league, and says the only way they will learn to develop consistent performances is by playing games at this level.

Roberts said: “I wouldn’t say I was unhappy last weekend (against Cinderford).

“Drawing at home is never a bad thing, and we could have snuck a win towards the end.

“We know they’ve a very good side with a lot of experience, and if you compare them to ourselves – our back line even is full of 20 or 21 year olds, or younger.

“We don’t have a lot of experience ourselves, so we understand that will only come with time and playing games.

“It’s the only way we will grow as a club.”