Bashley's misery at losing 1-0 at Corby Town on Saturday has been compounded by another injury to gifted left-back Mark Lisk.

Just three weeks after the 30-year-old from Hythe made his first tentative strides back after five months sidelined with ligament damage to his left knee, there are fears he has a similar problem with his other leg.

Assistant manager Ricky Haysom, who was taking his last game in charge before new manager John Robson steps in this week, reported: "Mark jarred his knee after about 15 minutes and had to come off. He thinks it might be similar to his last injury, but not quite as bad. He's going in for a scan this week so we'll know more after that, but it's a huge loss after just getting him back."

Defender Mark Jones also hobbled off with a groin injury on an afternoon when precious little went right for the Foresters as they succumbed to their second Eastern Division defeat in five days.

Corby scored with their first meaningful attack of the game in the 23rd minute when Brian Hardy was picked out by Wayne Spencer's searching, long ball and beat keeper David Elm at his near post.

How Bash failed to make amends for that setback remains a mystery to Haysom, who sighed: "We put in more crosses than in the rest of the season put together. We were camped in their half after the break and I shouldn't think Elmo touched the ball more than three times in the second half."

New signing Michael Jackson, who came in at the expense of Danny Gibbons, should have saved the day for Bash, but the big Romsey lad had a header brilliantly saved by keeper Richard Lavin, who then denied Richard Gillespie.

"Jacko could have had four on a better day, but we're just not scoring at the moment," said Haysom.

There were similar feelings of frustration for Eastleigh manager Paul Doswell, who admitted after a 2-1 home defeat by Ashford: "It's hard to say where it all went wrong. Too many of the side didn't play to their full potential."

Only four days had elapsed since Eastleigh's near-perfect performance slayed Salisbury 4-0 in Wiltshire, and yet on Saturday they looked like a different side.

They were 2-0 down inside 32 minutes to goals by Adrian Stone and Lee McRobert before Nicky Banger was fouled for a penalty which he got up and converted himself in the 39th minute.

Shortly before half-time Ashford had Martin Anderson sent off for a second bookable offence but, despite hitting the woodwork through ex-Saints Banger and Kevin Gibbens after the break, Eastleigh never looked convincing against the ten men.

While admitting it was "a bad day at the office", Doswell was not overly harsh on his newly-promoted side. He said: "To be fair, the lads put together five wins on the bounce for me and they were going to slip up somewhere.

"We've got to look at the bigger picture and say we'd have settled for the start we've had. We've got 16 points and if we can finish in the top-six and go up, then I'll be over the moon."

Doswell's player/assistant manager David Hughes was still feeling sore after Salisbury and could only contribute as a substitute against Ashford. Doswell confessed: "When David doesn't play, we're lacking something. We were also missing Lee Bright, Rob Marshall and Robbie Matthews, which all adds up. That's a big quartet to be without."