Farnborough Town 1, Leigh RMI 0 by Martyn Hindley

RMI's dismal run of results away from Hilton Park started five months ago at the Aimita Stadium and continued there on Saturday as they were on the receiving end of Farnborough Town's upsurge in fortunes.

Leigh were ironically lacking the killer instinct in midfield on the day when Mark Ward was named among the substitutes for the first time since his return to the club as assistant manager. How Steve Waywell craves a player of his quality in the middle of the park!

Penetration

Even with the troublesome Stuart Whittaker in attack, the Railwaymen were desperately lacking in penetration despite some tidy organisation at times.

Defensively too, they were sound until the hosts changed the game in the Danny Tiatto style by going down to 10 men.

Steve Watson is instrumental to Graham Westley's men but having committed the footballing equivalent of assault on Phil Salt and Neil Fitzhenry respectively, he could have no complaints at racking up enough yellows to sit out the rest of the game.

Before that point, Town had been disappointing as the long ball towards Ken Charlery earned them little reward and little popularity among an already paltry crowd. But, as so often happens, the disadvantage created a new unity of purpose for the Hampshire side and they grabbed the vital goal with 18 minutes still to play.

Gary Holloway drilled an effort past Stuart Coburn off the underside of the crossbar to condemn RMI to their worst ever start away from home since moving to Leigh in 1995. Leroy Griffiths had done all the hard graft on the left-hand side with Tony Taggart knocking the ball down to claim the assist.

But controversy seems to follow RMI on their travels and it did so again on Saturday. Debutant Chris Ward looked like a fish out of water on his first outing but should have had a penalty when Jim Rodwell hacked him down in the penalty box and the referee gave the decision outside the box. Dino Maamria also thought he had a good shout when he was hacked down moments later.

Right reasons

Rodwell earned his brass for the right reasons when he cleared Whittaker's effort off the line after it had beaten Tony Pennock, but it wasn't enough for Leigh. Their away endeavours had drawn a blank again - and the man in the middle created the talking points again.

RMI: Coburn, Maden, Fitzhenry (Williams 71), Durkin, Monk, Heald, Salt, Kielty, Whittaker, C Ward, Maamria. Subs unused: McGill, M Ward, Fisher, Whitehead. Attendance: 595. Booked: Durkin, Fitzhenry.