Jim Bentley's delight as AFC Fylde claim three points at Leamington

Goals from Sam Osborne and Alex Whitmore gave the Coasters a 2-0 win at Leamington in their first outing of the year after Covid-related call-offs.

Victory moved Bentley’s players back into the top three, six points behind leaders Brackley Town and with a game in hand.

Speaking afterwards, Bentley said: “It’s a big win for us. It’s important, when you’re going through a little bit of a sticky spell, that you get back on track.

“That’s what we’ve done today. It’s a difficult place to come, we saw that last year (1-1 draw).

“Away from home, a difficult pitch, the run that we’ve been on, we’ve had that break of 17 days without a game, we’ve been shut down for the best part of a week but we’ve got a few players back, we’ve had a good week in training and we took that into the game.

“I thought it was workmanlike, professional, disciplined: we’ve limited the opposition to mainly long-range shots.

“There were a couple of scary moments where it was bouncing around the box and we’ve shanked one or two clearances or kicked it against one of our players.

“We need to show a little bit more composure in those situations but they have taken the week into their performance and we’re really pleased.”

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