A late strike from Josh Newman saw the Lions kept alive of their hopes of avoiding relegation with a hard-earned win over Montana at Rowley Lane.

The Lions showed their fighting spirit as they roared past a lacklustre Montana who although playing great attacking football, couldn’t put the ball in the back of the net.

Montana started off the better team and dominated play for the first 30 minutes. The visitors were winning every ball in the air and came close to scoring on numerous occasions but thanks to the acrobatics of keeper Mark Brahams, Lions managed not to concede.

Having ridden the attacking onslaught of Montana for the first 30, the Lions started to find their stride and started to attack the wings towards the end of the half with Will Beresford and David Rose causing problems for the Montana defence.

Come the second half Lions were a different team; they started to get the ball down and spread the play from wing to wing with Gold and Kosky starting to find their feet.

With seven minutes to go Lions brought on substitute Kyte who proved to be a right handful for the Montana boys. It was not long after the inspiring substitution that the goal came. Sam Senchal ended up one-on-one with the Montana keeper who got a hand to the shot, but there was Josh Newman to snap up the rebound and slot the ball home in the 90th minute.

Manager Kyte said to reporters at the end of the game: "Today we showed the spirit that we’ve been lacking throughout the season. This was our first clean sheet and having Josh at centre back helped us a tremendous amount.

"If we win all our games and results go our way we still have a chance of staying up."

Defeat would have consigned the Lions to Division Two football next season, but they live to fight on. The travel to Oakwood next week and conclude the season at Montana.

Montana joint-manager Raymond Harrod told JC Sport: "Lions had one shot in the last minute and scored. We were guilty of missing five good chances and games should have been all over by half time."