Valley's dismal run of form continued with a heavy home defeat to rivals Bourne Town to sink deeper into relegation trouble.
The visitors boosted their own survival hopes with three goals within nine first-half minutes as Town made yet another sluggish start to a Butlin Road outing, and despite a slight improvement after the break, the mountain they had left themselves to climb was once more way too steep.
Town boss Grant Joshua made three changes from the starting line-up that had suffered a narrow 2-1 home defeat against Long Eaton a week earlier, with Geoffrey Lundoloki, Essa Janneh and Kobi Bivens in for Sam Tye, the injured Ryley Nicholson and the departed Teddy Rowe.
Jack Concannon nearly carved out an early chance for the hosts with a purposeful break down the left hand channel, but his cross was too weak and any potential danger was easily snuffed out.
After this, it was pretty much all Bourne for the remainder of the half, with their quickfire triple salvo kicking off in the eleventh minute when Rugby defender Bo Morris could only head on Freddie Allen's searching ball forward into the path of Zac Allen - who duly applied an excellent chipped finish over the head of Xander Grieves.
Robbie Ellis made it two with a neat volley on the turn after Freddie Allen's cross from the left had made its way through to him, and then just a minute later, Callum Milne's run from deep saw the ball end up with Lewis Darlington on the edge of the Valley box and Grieves could only get a hand to Darlington's well-struck effort before it hit the net.
The Bourne barrage continued, with Josh Thomas doing well to clear Sam Bayly's cross over his own bar, and Connor Furey sending in a volley from twenty yards straight at Grieves.
Zac Allen's low strike from distance bounced wide, and a further wild effort from Bayly also comfortably missed the target, with Thomas then performing another decent clearance to Zac Allen's low cross after the visitors had cleverly played around the Town defence.
In the closing few minutes of the opening period, Rugby finally managed a shot on goal when Bivens speculative effort from a wide position was gathered by Bourne keeper Will Lakin, with Bivens then instinctively lifting one over the bar on the stroke of half-time after Concannon had fired one low into the box.
Valley started the new half brightly, with Tyler Bruck having a dangerous cross cut-out and Rivel Mardenborough - one of three subs introduced at the restart - putting in an overhead kick to Janneh's ball from deep, which was saved by Lakin.
Lundoloki's threatening cross was headed behind for a corner, with Trey Charles then testing Lakin with a curling cross-shot from the right. Bivens floated one onto the roof of the net, before a Mardenborough centre was sliced up into Lakin's arms by Milne.
Lakin was again in alert form to get down to keep out Tye's header to another Charles cross, and Caine Elliott steered one wide from the edge of the penalty area. Charles continued to test the away defence with deliveries from his wing, and the next one saw Lakin punch it clear.
Lundoloki showed quick feet to create himself some space on the left before pulling the ball back across to Elliott, but his low effort was blocked by Freddie Allen in the goalmouth, with Tye blazing a volley way over after the returning sub Harrison Nee's free-kick had been headed out to him.
Nee then had a decent double chance in the box, but his shots were blocked by Milne and Richard Jones respectively after Lundoloki and Mardenborough had interchanged to good effect in the build-up.
There was however to be no late consolation for Town, and their frustrating afternoon was summed up with the very last kick of the game which saw Charles fire one high over the frame.
