Stevenage Borough 4 Leigh RMI 0 by Martyn Hindley: LEIGH RMI's re-building process hit another stumbling block at Broadhall Way as Stevenage ran riot to send the Railwaymen crashing to their fifth defeat in six matches.

Ultimately, Leigh were hammered not by Borough - who scarcely looked worth the four-goal mauling they registered - but by their own indiscipline at Gravesend a fortnight earlier that saw Martyn Lancaster and Wayne Maden suspended.

Lancaster and Maden have formed part of the backbone of the side this season, but without their presence, ex-Boston striker Anthony Elding stole the show. He opened the scoring midway through the first half when he sidled in on a pass from strike partner Tony Battersby and rifled low past Stuart Coburn.

Battersby was the villain of the piece in this fixture back in April when he was involved in an unsightly battle with Lancaster and both received their marching orders. And he didn't do much to gain popularity with the travelling fans again 11 minutes after the break when he received a ball from Simon Wormull in an offside position but proceeded unhindered to round Neil Durkin and Coburn before rolling into the empty net.

"Everyone in the ground could see that he was offside and that just sums up our luck at the moment. We aren't getting the rub of the green at the moment and from 2-0 we were chasing the game and we were exposed," said manager Mark Patterson.

Indeed with spaces all across the park stretching to acres, Justin Richards celebrated his freedom from the bench as he converted a cross from Jamie Cook 10 minutes after coming on and, appropriately, Elding's sumptious curler wrapped things up in stoppage time.

As at Morecambe though, RMI's inability to get the first notch on the board was to cost them dear, particularly when Dave McNiven was presented with the chance to do just that. McNiven turned Ian Monk's cross into the side-netting and lived to regret it as problems were exacerbated at the opposite end.

But Patterson only had three substitutes had his disposal - a sorry but accurate reflection on a fact of Conference football that can't be changed. Part-time clubs will eternally struggle to compete with professional moneymen.

"We need time to gel together as a team and it isn't going to be pretty or easy. But we need time and people have to look at the bigger picture. I'm disappointed and I can understand people's frustrations. But we just need time to become the finished article," added Patterson.