SALISBURY CITY pulled off a stunning 2-1 win at Johnson Hippolyte's FA Cup heroes Yeading on Saturday, despite being without five key players through injury and suspension.

An early threat from Yeading's Darti Brown was dealt with and the Ding were restricted to just one other first-half chance when Salisbury keeper Kevin Sawyer made a great save from Leon Woodruffe on 37 minutes.

The rest of the half belonged to Salisbury, Leigh Phillips and Steve Strong going close before Robbie Matthews bundled in a Mark Lisk corner on 18 minutes to give the Whites the lead.

Strong and Craig Davis both forced decent saves from the Yeading keeper as Salisbury threatened to run away with the match, the hosts grateful to reach half-time still only one goal in arrears.

Yeading, who ran Newcastle so close in the Cup, pushed forward after the interval but were caught with a lightning break which saw Matthews brought down in the box by Nevin Saroya. Davis coolly despatched the 59th-minute penalty to double Whites' advantage.

Salisbury's tremendous effort took its toll late on as Yeading tried desperately to get back into it and, after D J Campbell missed a good opportunity, Alex Stanley rifled in an unstoppable free-kick on 86 minutes to provide an uncomfortable period of the game which Salisbury survived to go up three league places.

After the game assistant manager Barry Blankley said: "This was an excellent performance.

"Everything was right from the time we arrived, through the warmup and through the match until the end. We were fully committed, fully professional and we thoroughly deserved the result.

"They had a bit of pressure towards the end but it didn't really hurt us and Kevin Sawyer's handling was superb throughout the match.

"At half-time we could have come in 4-0 up but their keeper made good saves from Steve Strong, Craig Davis and Leigh Phillips.

"We were very compact and very solid and it is nice to see we have moved out of the bottom four. Each game now is like a cup final. We can't rely upon other teams to drop points, we have just got to make sure that we look after ourselves as our destiny is in our own hands."

There were no excuses from manager Paul Doswell as EASTLEIGH spectacularly blew their chance to narrow the gap on leaders Yeading after being hammered 4-0 by Slough Town at the Sparshatts Stadium.

"We had one of those days, I'm afraid," said Doswell. "But give Slough credit, they were very good.

"I told my lads that if you don't give a team respect in this league, they'll end up beating you and Saturday was a massive wake-up call for us. They absolutely ripped us apart."