AFC Telford United 1, Chorley 2

Perhaps crucially, after enjoying first-half supremacy, the Bucks lost much of their fizz in the last quarter of the game, their efforts in a tough match against Spennymoor on Thursday taking their toll on a deteriorating boggy playing surface.

But that factor should not detract from a typically direct and uncompromising display by the Magpies who scored two quality goals in their best spell of the match deep into the second half.

Matt Urwin produced a trio of excellent saves to keep Chorley on terms in the first half. In the opening minutes he pulled off a great save low to his left from Ryan Giles and later did well to hold a firm Shane Sutton header.

Then when Elliot Newby worked an opening for an angled shot Urwin brilliantly palmed the ball for a corner at his near post.

In between these heroics, Alex Newby matched his twin brother’s eye for goal with a strong shot which Bucks’ keeper Ben Wilson parried before recovering to beat Marcus Carver to the loose ball.

Urwin was soon in action again after the break, tipping over the bar a deflected drive from Giles before Newby responded for Chorley with a cracking 25-yards’ shot which flashed past the far post.

It was unsurprisingly Newby who broke the deadlock on 68 minutes. Racing onto a long ball down the left from Adam Blakeman, he closed in on goal before slipping his narrow-angled shot neatly beyond Wilson, the ball clipping the post on its way into the net.

Claiming his fourth goal in as many games, Carver added Chorley’s second on 82 minutes, receiving the ball after a throw-in and smashing a superb shot on the turn past Wilson.

Telford were thrown a late lifeline when the referee adjudged Scott Leather to have transgressed and awarded a penalty, powerfully converted by Elliot Newby, which ensured the two opposing brothers both finished on the scoresheet. But Chorley saw out the remaining minutes without undue trouble to take the points.

This victory lifts the Magpies into eighth place just two points away from a play-offs’ slot ahead of Tuesday’s trip to another relegation-threatened side in Leamington.

CHORLEY : Urwin, Challoner, Blakeman, Teague, Leather, Jordan, Newby (Hughes,81), O’Keefe, Carver, Walker (Wilson,77), Cottrell. Unused subs. Molyneux, Burgess, Lightfoot.

Att. 1.048.