Valley dropped their first home points of the campaign, after surrendering a lead by conceding a goal in each half from the Buckinghamshire visitors’ set-plays.

Mason Rowley had given Town the lead on the half hour mark, but the visitors were soon level – before Marlow then struck again with fourteen minutes remaining.

It was a fairly flat, disjointed performance from the hosts – especially in the second half by a side showing two changes from the previous match at Northwood, with Richard Blythe and Justin Marsden replacing the unavailable Lewis McBride and the now-departed Nathan Fox.

The first chance of the game fell to Rugby, with Sam Youngs shooting straight at a defender after a neat Town passing move.

Youngs was again denied – this time by Marlow keeper Simon Grant, after Seb Lake-Gaskin and Will Grocott had combined well, and at the other end Joe Mellings had to backpedal quickly to tip Jon Bennett’s audacious back flick over the bar.

A Grocott effort was then deflected away for a corner, and from the resulting delivery Alex Gudger’s initial strike was blocked by his own man David Kolodynski, but the loose ball fell nicely for Rowley to power low past Grant.

Five minutes later, the visitors were level though, when an unchallenged Dan Hicks rose to meet Jake Parrott’s free-kick, duly heading it past Mellings.

Valley had probably their best spell of the game between the equaliser and the half-time whistle, with Grant quick off his line to deny Kolodynski, Lake-Gaskin flashing a ball across the face of the goal, and Youngs again having a shot blocked out.

The second period was generally a drab affair, although both Kolodynski and Lake-Gaskin did get in behind the Marlow defence – before putting in weak efforts which Grant had little difficulty dealing with.

A low Richard Blythe shot which Grant gathered at the second attempt was the only other real goalscoring opportunity for Town, before Adam Richards headed the winning goal from a Richie Whittingham corner.

Disappointingly Rugby failed to test Grant again in the remaining quarter of an hour or so, giving the visitors a first win of the 2014/15 season in the process.

Valley line-up: Mellings; Grocott, Kelly, Rowley, Gudger (L Bishop); Jepson, Blythe, Youngs; Lake-Gaskin, Marsden (Towers); Kolodynski. Subs: K.Bishop, Weale. Booked: None.

Marlow line-up: Grant, Richards, Ovenden, Brooks, Hicks, Bailey, Barney, Mealing, Bennett, King, Parrott. Subs: Sankoh, Whittingham, Holder-Spooner, Ferdinand, Garnes.