Two first-half goals from the visitors gave the Boro a mountain to climb after the restart, and Luca Navarro’s late finish set up a nail-biting end to the action, but Brackley held on to take maximum points back to the East Midlands.

One change was made to the eleven that were involved in Tuesday’s share of the spoils, as George Glendon regained his position amongst the starters in place of Tom Walker, who was the provider for Scott Duxbury’s header in midweek.

Brackley started fluently from the off with a couple of chances for George Carline and Matt Lowe inside 15 minutes, but an off target effort and a solid save from Mateusz Hewelt kept the scoreline at 0-0.

Their pressure paid off on the 37-minute mark by grabbing the first goal of the afternoon, courtesy of Zak Lilly. His towering header at the back post couldn’t be kept out by the Radcliffe shot-stopper, despite his best efforts.

Moments after Justin Donawa came inches away from making it two, Danny Newton did eventually score Brackley’s second goal as the additional minutes at the end of the first half were announced, bundling over the line to take a healthy lead into the half-time interval, while Radcliffe were given a hill to climb.

To their credit, the Boro soldiered on and gave the Brackley defence work to do after the restart. Multiple corners were won but couldn’t be taken advantage of, before George Glendon took aim and dragged off target with 60 minutes on the clock.

Four players were introduced to the fray from the bench in an attempt to roll the dice in search of a way back into the game, and Bernard and Jonno’s team would halve the deficit soon after, but it was too little too late despite Luca Navarro firing into the roof of the net for his third goal of the season.

Five added minutes at the end of the 90 weren’t enough for the hosts to salvage something from the game, but an improved second half gave encouraging signs as we head to Spennymoor Town on Tuesday night.

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