Evo-Stik League Div 1 S&W.

Tiverton Town 1 Cirencester Town 2.

CIRENCESTER TOWN made it three successive wins in the league with a battling but deserved victory at Tiverton Town.

With Chris Thompson restored to the back four after injury, the visitors looked solid at the back throughout, so it came as a surprise that having gone in front in the 70th minute through Sam Collier they allowed Tiverton back in the game with six minutes remaining.

In the 88th minute, however, Sam Packer finished off the move of the match to give Ciren all three points.

Controlling the ball for both teams was not easy on a bumpy pitch after two nights of hard frost, and it took 30 minutes of a quiet first half before the first real chance of any note.

Shane Bumphrey took the ball around Chris Wright only for the Tivvy goalkeeper to recover and save once the Ciren winger had drifted to a very acute angle.

With Ciren on top in the final 15 minutes of the half, Brad Hooper and James Mortimer-Jones both went close but on the stroke of half-time Tivvy’s Michael Nardiello had a shot blocked and Josh Searle hammered the rebound well over the crossbar.

Ciren should have gone ahead in the second period when, from a Ben Wells corner, there was a scramble in the box and Wright saved a Collier header from two yards.

Tiverton had their first genuine chance in the 66th minute when a penetrating through ball found Nardiello but, with only Garner to beat, he fired a low hard shot wide of the far post.

In the 70th minute, Ciren took the lead. Ellis Dunton started the move down the left and Wells, described in the Tivvy web report as ‘a little magician of a player at this level’, fed the perfect ball into Sam Collier who turned and hit it past the advancing keeper.

The game took a dramatic swing, though, in the 84th minute after Garner failed to cope with a high, sliced attempted clearance by Ellis Dunton and the ball spilled into the path of Joe Bushin who fired home from close range.

However, the game was won by a slick piece of football; Wells made a good run across the pitch and fed a pass to Griffin who had his back to goal. He flicked it right for the accelerating Bennett to run on to and the youngster powered forward into the box before squaring a great cross into the path of Sam Packer, who made no mistake.

Cirencester Town: Garner, Anson (capt), Dunton, Thompson, Henry, Mortimer-Jones, Hooper, Wells, Collier (Griffin, 70), Bennett, Bumphrey (Packer, 65). Unused sub: Beeden.