Now firmly established in the middle of the table, Town reinforced their current position with an impressive performance against strugglers Rothwell on Saturday.

The two goal margin of victory could easily have been significantly more as Town carved out numerous scoring opportunities, with Matt Lunn and Jamie Shaw tormenting the visitors' defence from the opening whistle.

And Corinthians' chances of getting themselves onto the scoreboard were efficiently thwarted by a Town back four that gave nothing away all afternoon, with Paul Ward and Jones at the heart of the defence looking solid as a rock.

Dunn had an early attempt saved and good play by Lunn nearly set up Shaw.

The game was only eight minutes old when Jones gave Town the lead, heading home from a Jason Sedlan free kick.

Lunn and Shaw again combined well, only for Shaw's final shot to be saved by the Rothwell keeper and a jinking run by Shaw caused havoc in the visitors' defence but his shot went wide.

Scott in the Town goal, who was a spectator for much of the game, was called upon to pull off a good save late in the half but a handball incident in the area at the other end gave Sleaford the chance to open up a two goal lead two minutes from half time. Lunn made no mistake from the spot.

Town continued to dominate after the break but were unable to find the target again.

Mid way through the half, Shinn came on for Sedlan and Tom Ward for Oliver Sidney.

Town: Scott; Sidney, P Ward, Jones, Fenton; Sutton, C Stones, J Sedlan, Lunn; Dunn, Shaw. Subs: Shinn, C Sedlan, T Ward, Tomlinson

Manager's comment:

THREE more points in the bag and a convincing win meant Town boss Brian Rowland was justifiably pleased with Saturday's result.

He told the Standard: "I thought we played really well and dominated the game throughout.

"I would have liked to have seen more goals, especially as we created a lot of chances, but I was particularly pleased that we kept a clean sheet. I felt the back four were terrific and Lunn and Shaw up front caused Rothwell a lot of problems – they didn't seem to know how to deal with Lunn.

"Overall it was a good performance. We're certainly heading in the right direction at the moment."