A late goal earned all three points for the home side as the Woods continued with their recent goal-shy performances and went down to their first “double” of the season. Royston are still in with a good chance of creeping into the play-off spots if they can find a bit more consistency in the last couple of months of the campaign but this defeat will have ended any outside chance that Northwood still had of making the top five.

Steve Brown was restored to bolster the defence, Dave Lawrence came back into the midfield while the attack was changed with Ismael Ehui and Rob Hastings preferred on this occasion to Joakim Ehui and Nana Asamoah.

The strong wind did neither side any favours and it made for a first-half that lacked any real quality from either side. After an early Ryan Ingrey header was cleared away by James Burgess, the Crows toiled away without getting past the Northwood rearguard but the Woods failed to find any way past the strong wind, the uphill slope, or the home back-line.

Once again James Burgess was replaced by Jordan Lawal for the second half and hopes were high that the Woods would be able to make more of an attacking threat with the wind behind them. But in fact the winds died down a little, and Lawrence’s snap-shot that was driven wide was the first effort on goal after an hour.

There was plenty of endeavour from both sides but without much result and substitutions were made on both sides as Royston just began to shade things. Ingrey had an effort that flew over and then a deep cross from Chris Watters saw Jack Bradshaw head over the bar.

The home side gambled by going three at the back for the final twenty minutes, giving them more width through their wing-backs and this did appear to give them a distinct advantage for the closing stages.

Berkley Laurencin had to make his first save of the match on 75 minutes, keeping out on-loan Orient forward Ayo Adeboyejo near-post strike and then substitute Spyros Mentis volleyed Watters cross wide of the far-post. After 78 minutes substitute Joakim Ehui lost possession and Royston countered quickly with Ingrey feeding Bradshaw, but the hard-working midfielder sliced his shot horribly wide.

It finally paid off on 84 minutes as Mentis made ground on the right and found Bradshaw again in space. His shot crashed back off the post but fell kindly to Adeboyejo, who fired home from close range to put the Crows in front.

Adeboyejo had another chance before the end but shot straight at Laurencin and then the Woods mounted a late rally and had just once chance in stoppage-time to equalise. Mark Burgess made a good challenge in midfield and the ball cannoned into the path of Hastings as he raced into the box only to be denied by an excellently-timed block tackle from Liam McDevitt as he delayed his shot too long.