The score line belies the dominance shown by a hard working Paulton as Melksham Town scored two late goals.

Melksham Town 2 Paulton Rovers 3

Rovers went ahead after two minutes as Chris Peck combined with Martin Lenihan who set up left winger Ed Butcher who fired a low shot past Conor Thompson in the home goal.

They could have added through Kyle Tooze and Will Harvey whilst Lenihan fired wide.

Paulton made it 2-0 on twenty seven minutes as Peck won the ball in midfield, found Tooze and laid the ball into the path of Harvey who hit a low fierce drive past Thompson.

Melksham’s long ball saw Aaron Sainsbury in the Rovers goal rarely troubled whist his defence of James Byrne, Nuno Felix, Mike Ilea and captain Neil Martin stemmed the threat of Chris Zaboski.

Early in the second half the runs of Byrne down the right and Felix on the left saw both full backs stretching the home defence.

Melksham captain was shown a red card for a very poor tackle on Butcher clearly stopping a goal scoring opportunity and from the ensuing melee, the referee waived yellow cards like confetti at a wedding.

Rovers added a third as Tooze was on the end of a Byrne pass and slotted past Thompson on eighty four minutes.

Tooze was replaced by Paulo Borges who was put through by man of the match Felix and one on one with the keeper failed to round Thompson and the keeper blocked with his foot to clear.

Albert Hopkins hit a sweet free-kick in the eighty ninth minute past Sainsbury to pull a goal back. In truth, the free-kick award seemed very harsh.

With final kick of the game, Dan McBean reduced the deficit further.

With a crowd of three hundred and forty seven, how Paulton would love to see as many at the First4Pools Stadium at Winterfield Road, something this team richly deserves. Walsh