The top of the table clash at Butlin Road was an uninspiring affair as the top two cancelled each other out.

The division’s current top two sides played out a stalemate in a game of few clear cut goalscoring chances.

Without necessarily being the most entertaining of spectacles, it was instead at times an absorbing affair in front of an impressive crowd of 504.

Valley included three new signings in their matchday squad, with Aaron King named in the starting line-up, and then Luke Bottomer and Ben Gallant both debuting later from the bench.

The game started in frantic fashion, with neither side able to establish any real control or rhythm and with too many long balls pumped hopefully up-field – a theme which prevailed throughout the majority of the match.

The visitors edged the first half, with Leon Cashman their most threatening outlet – twice having efforts fly just over the target and also forcing Niall Cooper into an excellent fingertip save after he had cut in from the right flank.

For Rugby, Seb Lake-Gaskin did put in a couple of relatively harmless strikes, and likewise Justin Marsden and King also failed to trouble Jamie Head with their shots.

The second period also started in a tense, scrappy manner with little quality to the overall play, before the introductions of Jamie Towers and Bottomer around the hour mark sparked the hosts’ most lively spell of the match.

Towers was soon in the game, bursting down the wing to earn his side the first of a series of corners.

The second of these came when David Kolodynski nearly got on the end of Marsden’s ball to the near post, and then Nathan Fox’s touch just let him down as he surged into the box from the left.

Head was properly tested for the first time by Marsden’s stinging effort from distance, which he could only parry for another corner – the delivery of which led to a good shout for a penalty that the generally unimpressive referee Ian Rathbone subsequently waived away.

Rugby’s best chance of the game then fell to Kolodynski after Towers had again done well out wide, but the recently-named local sportsman of the year steered his shot to King’s headed knock down just over the bar.

From that point on though, it was Dunstable that looked the more likely outfit to break the deadlock – with first Fox doing well to beat Tony Burnett to Christopher Marsh’s dangerous cross and then Cooper pulling out the save of the match to keep out Cashman’s volley on the turn.

However the visitors should really have clinched it in the final minute of the game, when Marsh somehow helped a reciprocated Burnett cross wide of the target with his body – when it looked so much easier to score from just a couple yards out.

Valley Line-up: Cooper; Myles, Fox, Haines, Gudger; Kaziboni (Towers), Marsden, Blythe (Bottomer), King; Kolodynski, Lake-Gaskin (Gallant). Subs not used: Connolly, Palmer. Booked:None.

Dunstable line-up: Head, Jibidou, Murphy, Bruce, Leach, Olaleye, Watkins, Cashman, Christie, Frater, Marsh. Subs: Carney, Burnett, Plowright, Fontanelle.