STEPHEN Cleal feels his Malvern Town side produced the ‘ultimate performance’ to claim a stunning 3-0 win away at league leaders Yate Town.
The Hillsiders left the home side stunned as Harry Clark and Dion Molyneux put the visitors into a two-goal lead at the break before Joe Bullock completed the scoring late on at Lodge Road.
The win means Malvern sit ninth in the Southern League Division One South table, four points outside of the play-off places.
And Hillsiders co-manager Cleal believes his side produced the perfect away performance to inflict just a fourth league defeat on leaders Yate this season.
Cleal said: “Everyone gave their ultimate performance and we got the three points.
“When you’re coming to the top of the table you have to be good in all areas to win the game of football.
“We were very good both defensively and offensively, our last two away performances have been almost perfect away performances.
“We’ve defended when we had to and ultimately taken our chances and scored some good goals.
“We’ve been very good in the last few weeks, we know we needed to be better than what we had been, especially over Christmas we had a poor time.
“We backed up last week’s win and we need to back up this win as well.”
Malvern made a dream start as Clark smashed home a loose ball from close range after Joe Thomas kept out Jack Watts’ initial effort with four minutes on the clock.
Yate looked to respond just past the quarter-hour mark as Malvern goalkeeper Josh Bishop superbly saved Ross Stearn’s free-kick from 25-yards out.
And Bishop showed quick reactions to also keep out Dan Dempsey’s follow-up.
However, Malvern doubled their lead on 29 minutes when Molyneux headed in Charlie Johnson’s corner unchallenged from close range.
The Hillsiders had a chance to extend their advantage before the break as Watts saw his attempt to loop the ball over the goalkeeper held by Thomas.
The start of the second half was delayed due to an injury to referee Jack Bromham with assistant referee Dylan Bayliss taking over in the middle and another linesman sourced from the crowd.
Chances were at a premium in the second period as Yate substitute Will Larvin glanced a header wide while Bishop held Lloyd James’ free-kick from just outside the penalty area.
At the other end, Watts unleashed a powerful effort towards goal which Thomas saved behind with a strong hand.
And Hillsiders substitute Bullock completed the scoring one minute from time as he tapped home after superb footwork from Clark.
