By Gareth Davies at the Truro City Stadium

NATIONAL LEAGUE SOUTH (SATURDAY)

Truro City 2 Slough Town 0

TRURO City strengthened their promotion push with a routine win over mid-table Slough as the visitors suffered a sixth consecutive defeat on the road.

For the home side, they were winners in the Duchy for the first time since mid-January, thanks to goals from Connor Riley-Lowe and Christian Oxlade-Chamberlain.

In front of a largely partisan and vociferous crowd of 1,776, City took the lead with their first attack of note.

And it was the familiar long throw of Oxlade-Chamberlain that did the trick as he found Tom Harrison, who flicked to Jaze Kabia and onto Riley-Lowe. The City skipper found space at the back post to fire towards goal and despite his effort taking a deflection off Slough player-boss Scott Davies, visiting custodian Charlie Horlock was beaten and the net rippled.

Slough responded well to falling behind and but for an acrobatic save from Dan Lavercombe, should have restored parity when Spasov headed towards goal from close range.

But City’s gloveman clawed the ball, one-handed, over the crossbar and the home side’s lead remained intact, with it nearly doubling after 22 minutes.

Harrison, who is such a danger from set pieces, shot on target at the back post from a Riley-Lowe corner with the ball deflecting off a blue shirt and away from danger.

Kabia then fired over after a lighting counter involving Luke Jephcott and Zac Bell but Slough were still in the contest and Lavercombe saved from David Ogbonna inside the six-yard box.

After the turnaround, City almost drew first blood when Yassine En-Neyah squared for an unmarked Kabia who couldn’t keep his effort down.

Riley-Lowe was then withdrawn from the action, suffering from a calf problem, with Tyler Harvey thrust into the fray as part of a front three as City changed formation and went to a flat back four.

Harvey nearly made an instant impact as he reached Kabia’s deep corner, with some last ditch Slough defending somehow keeping the ball out. City’s leading scorer had another good opportunity, this time with his head, after Jephcott had pulled wide on the right.

With 20 minutes left, City had a glorious chance to double their lead as En-Neyah, who was at his industrious best in midfield, played a wonderful slide rule ball to Kabia whose low shot towards goal was saved by Horlock’s legs.

Then, with 13 minutes left, the decisive second goal did arrive with Kabia claiming his second assist of the game. A free-kick into the Rebels’ box was only half cleared and Kabia headed back into danger, with Oxlade-Chamberlain out-jumping a hesitant Horlock and the ball dropped into the net.

With 90 minutes approaching, City emptied their bench with Dom Johnson-Fisher having two half chances to break his City scoring duck, while the final goalmouth action of note saw Spasov’s radar malfunction at the vital time as he missed the target when the Bulgarian seemed certain to score.

City have now kept consecutive clean sheets and as the business end of the season approaches, are very much in English football’s most enthralling promotion mix.

TRURO CITY: Lavercombe, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Harrison, Law, Bell, En-Neyah (Bates, 90), Dean, Rooney (Palfrey, 84), Riley-Lowe (capt, Harvey, 55), Jephcott (Neal, 90), Kabia (Johnson-Fisher, 84).