BOSS Steve Riley hailed Bashley’s latest Southern League Premier Division awayday success “a thoroughly professional performance”.

Goals either side of half-time from ace marksmen Dave Allen and Mark Gamble saw Riley’s promotion chasers extend their unbeaten run on the road to 12 games with a 2-0 victory.

Allen headed home his 16th goal of the season after 36 minutes before he provided the assist for Gamble to notch his 12th in added time.

Riley saw his charges rescue their proud away record by coming from 3-0 down to salvage a point thanks to a stirring second-half fight back at Swindon Supermarine in midweek.

“We continued against Clevedon from where we had left off on Wednesday,” said Riley. “They are a hard-working side and the pitch was heavy. But we put them under a lot of pressure and had to dig in and make the best of a bad pitch.

“We were organised and caused them lots of problems. We had lots of possession and made their goalkeeper work hard. We saw a lot of the ball and created a number of chances. It wasn’t easy to find that final ball because of the pitch and we couldn’t get more end product.

“With all the possession we had, we should have scored more than we did but you would always take a 2-0 win away from home.

“It was also pleasing to get a clean sheet. We defended really well and were solid as a unit. There were no stand-out individual performers because everybody worked really hard. We stuck to our game-plan, broke in numbers and everybody did their job.”

Victory saw Bashley consolidate third place in the table ahead of back-to-back home clashes against Banbury United on Saturday and second-placed Brackley Town a week tomorrow.

Riley added: “We haven’t had much luck at Clevedon in recent seasons so it was great to finally get a win. It was also good to get the game on because a few were postponed. We would rather keep up with our games than have a backlog of fixtures.

“With two games in four days coming up, we will only train once this week. We’ve done a lot of travelling recently and it takes its toll, especially as the pitches have been heavy as well.”

And while Riley concedes the race for the title concerns only one horse, he also believes the battle for play-off places will involve a number of runners.

“Farnborough will win the league,” said Riley, with the Hampshire outfit eight points clear. “Then, there are eight or nine teams in the pot trying to reach the play-offs.

“There is lots to play for and there are going to be a number of twists and turns. But I can only concern myself with what we’re doing and we will just see where we are come the end of April.”

Bashley: Elm, Smith (Mason, 68), Ferrett, Middleton, Gazzard, Knowles, Kelly, Allen, Cream (Maxwell, 63), Gamble (Keeler, 90), Knight. Unused subs: Mead, Riley.