GARETH Davies’ message for his Fairford Town players following their fine victory over Cheltenham Saracens on Saturday afternoon was that the ‘league table doesn’t lie’.

Fairford travelled to Gloucestershire and deposed the previous league leaders with a 2-1 victory at Petersfield Park, with Davies’ men elevated to the top of the table in Saracens’ place as they stretched their unbeaten run in Division One West to eight matches.

Lewis Petrie gave Fairford the lead but despite Cheltenham levelling things up midway through the second period, Lee Smith’s cross was headed back across goal by Scott Chilcott and Josh Skeates was on-hand to steer home the winner.

Although Cinder Lane chief Davies is keen to warn his players against taking their lofty new position for granted, he is keen for his troops to enjoy the view from up high.

“The players deserve a lot of credit because they’ve worked so hard. We said to them after the game that the league table doesn’t lie,” said Davies.

“They’ve worked hard to get into that position. Obviously, the thing with being at the top of the table is that you’re there to be shot at and everybody wants to beat you.

“It’s also important to make sure that we don’t go into the next game thinking ‘well we’ve beaten Cheltenham now’ – you have to prepare the same way for every game.”

Davies added: “We started the game really quickly. We created quite a lot of chances but apart from the one goal, a lot of them didn’t go in and you’re starting to wonder if those missed chances are going to cost us.

“Josh Skeates hasn’t been able to get a goal for love nor money and we’ve been saying to him that he just needs one to go in off his backside or something like that.

“It was a great ball in from Lee Smith, Scott Chilcott headed it back across and Josh just came out of nowhere to get the winner.

“The players were delighted at the end of the game and I was shattered.”