SWINDON Supermarine manager Dave Webb was left to rue Sarturday’s last-minute 4-3 defeat at Stratford Town.

Richard Gregory’s injury-time winner for the Warwickshire club now means that the Webb’s Wood Stadium outfit are relying on Shortwood United and Paulton Rovers slipping up in their games in hand.

Supermarine have also slipped to fourth place in Southern League Division One South and West and only have a three point lead over sixth placed Shortwood, who also have a superior goal difference.

Webb said: “If we had won at Stratford it would have been in our own destiny, now it is out of our hands.

“But when you concede four goals, you are not going to win at any level.

“We now have to hope that Shortwood and Paulton drop points, something that they do not look like doing.”

It was a disappointing start for Webb’s side at the DCS Stadium as Chris Sterling and a Curtis da Costa own goal gave the hosts a 2-0 lead with only 19 minutes on the clock.

However, Ash Edenborough ended his goal drought on 33 minutes as he netted the first of his hat-trick to reduce the arrears before Tyrone Fagan ensured that Town went in at the interval 3-1 up.

Edenborough then completed his treble with two goals in three minutes late in the second half, only for the division’s leading marksman Gregory to bag his 33rd goal of the campaign to snatch victory in stoppage time.

“I thought that we deserved a point,” Webb said. “We had got ourselves back to 3-3 and we didn’t have the nous to close the game out.

“We knew that they had good attacking players and we didn’t suss the danger.

“It was great to have Ash scoring again, but we conceded sloppy goal, which isn’t like us.”

Supermarine must now try to bounce back against table-topping Merthyr Town, who have had their lead at the summit reduced to just six goals after they drew 3-3 at Yate Town as second-placed Cirencester Town beat Cinderford Town 2-0.

“There is now lot of pressure on this game for both teams,” Webb said. “We knew that if we had beaten Stratford we would have won four on the spin and we could have used that momentum against Merthyr.

“But we have now both dropped points and it will give this game an extra edge.

“We know that we have the players to score, it is now a case of getting back to how we have been defending as prior to Stratford we had three clean sheets in a row.”