Monmouth Town 3 Merthyr Saints 2

Another home win, this time against bottom club Merthyr Saints pushed Monmouth Town's Kingfishers up three places in their fight for Welsh League survival and were made to sweat as Merthyr threatened to snatch a draw courtesy of a bizarre goal in the dying minutes.

In a dire first half there were few chances for either side, although good work on occasions by Sam Palmer and Sam McCoy could have brought more positive results as shots flew high and wide and a glaring Merthyr miss may have proved costly for Town.

The second half promised more of the same until the introduction of Bowen on the hour and his immediate rapport with Tranter led to confusion in the Merthyr defence and Dean Palmer capitalised with a sweet strike on the hour from the edge of the box.

The Tranter - Bowen combination was evident just a few minutes later as a great run and cross by the former was converted gleefully by the latter and Town looked home and dry. Tranter added a third on 80 minutes to add what looked like a gloss on the proceedings.

Merthyr had other ideas and threw bodies forward to at least try to make a game of the last few minutes and were rewarded with an easily converted header from a corner, missed a number of other good opportunities before an amazing 'goal that wasn't' was claimed by the less than holy Saints and, to the disgust of most of the Monmouth players, given by the referee.

Town captain Jack Alderdice explained "The ball struck the stanchion behind the goal from a shot and came back into play. To be honest we all stopped at that point but one of their lads has popped it back into the goal.

"I was amazed when they claimed it and the ref pointed to the centre circle. Luckily it didn't cost us anything and we could afford to have a laugh about it afterwards."

Chairman Lee Robson spending his final week on dug out duties commented after the game "I'm delighted we've managed to get clear of the bottom three but there's still a long way to go.

"We've had to manage without our permanent manager for a number of weeks now and that has been unsettling for some of the players. They've stuck at it and we've taken 10 from the last fifteen on offer so there's some food for thought when he gets back nex