MARK Collier’s Chippenham Town rose to the top of the Southern League Premier Division table with a hard fought 1-0 win over previous leaders Leamington at Hardenhuish Park.

David Pratt’s goal was enough to see the Bluebirds to a crucial victory, with their opponents being reduced to 10 men when goalkeeper Tony Breeden was sent off four minutes before half-time for a second bookable offence.

Despite the win, Collier admitted he was a little bit disappointed with his team’s second-half showing.

“To go 1-0 up was pleasing. They had the keeper sent off, which changed the dynamic of the game really,” said the Chippenham boss.

“I was a little disappointed in our second half performance that we didn’t get on the front foot and attack them aggressively, but we kept them at bay.”

The result now means that unbeaten Chippenham sit top of the table with four wins and a draw from their opening five games.

Collier said: “To think that five games in we are undefeated; we are comfortable with our start. They haven’t surprised me. The additions were people who would make a difference and they’ve all made a contribution.

“To think that players like Chris Allen and Alan Griffin are on the bench just shows we have a bit of depth. I just think we can go from strength to strength.”

Despite his disappointment in the performance, Collier was more than happy with the end result as his troops collected their second 1-0 on the bounce.

He added: “Credit to the players. Overall, we had a lot of possession and created a lot of chances. It’s four wins on the spin, so we should be particularly happy “Two 1-0s; we are happy with that. Credit to the players. We have a bit of strength-in-depth at this moment in time.

“They (Leamington) score a lot of goals. They have a lot of physicality, so we needed to set up properly for set pieces and we did.

“They’ve got good experienced players, they recruited well in the summer too they sat behind the ball and they have pace in areas to try and hurt us.

“We stood up and defended well. Against 10 isn’t always easy. We got the first goal and a second was always going to kill the game but unfortunately we couldn’t quite get it.

“We’ve learnt from our mistakes that sometimes you need to grind it out and grab what you can, that’s what we did.”

Chippenham now have a week to prepare for their next game when they travel to Cambridgeshire to play eighth-place St Neots Town.