Valley made it four wins on the spin after a clinical display in Cambridgeshire at St Ives Town.

Despite being far from their best, Seb Lake-Gaskin struck twice near the end of both halves on the back of Sam Youngs’s 18th minute opener to give Town victory.

Craig Kelly was restored to the starting line-up after serving a one match ban, and despite a relatively encouraging start, Rugby were soon on the back foot and were lucky not to go behind when Karl Gibbs was denied by a good save from Niall Cooper after the St Ives man had beaten Mason Rowley to find himself clear on goal.

From the very next attack, Cooper was again in the action – pulling out a double save to deny Jared Cunniff from the edge of the area.

Therefore it was against the general run of play when the visitors took the lead through Youngs, with David Kolodynski applying a good first touch before cleverly back heeling the ball to the midfielder – who struck the ball low into the corner.

Cunniff then had another chance from around twenty yards for the hosts, after he had wriggled free from a number of challenges.

Valley were forced into an early change after Louis Harris limped from the field, and his replacement Aaron Moses-Garvey was soon in the game setting up Lake-Gaskin for Town’s second five minutes before the break, with the in-form striker coolly slotting home.

Rugby had a chance to put the game out of sight early in the second period, but home keeper Nick Bennion saved Youngs’s fizzing effort after Kolodynski had done well to keep the ball in-play.

The bulk of the half was a scrappy affair though, with neither side creating much of note in the final third – although Cunniff did have Cooper sprawling with a long range effort which drifted just wide of the target.

The visitors wrapped up the points with Lake-Gaskin taking advantage of Dan Newman’s inability to deal with Cooper’s long clearance before smashing home on 85 minutes.

Shortly after, it could easily have been four, when Lake-Gaskin again broke free before flashing the ball across the face of the goal – but agonisingly out of reach of his team-mates though.

Valley Line-up: Cooper; Myles, Kelly, Rowley, Gudger; Spencer (Palmer), Mardsen, Harris (Moses-Garvey), Youngs; Lake-Gaskin; Kolodynski (Williams). Subs not used: Bishop. Booked: None.

St Ives line-up: Bennion, Cobb, Lambert, Newman, Fordham, Dean, Cunniff, Banister, Ogbonna, Gibbs, Vieira. Subs: Meechan, Roberts, King.