Paul Moody returns to training with Gosport Borough tomorrow night after three frustrating weeks out with cracked ribs.

Yet despite his outstanding pedigree in Football League goalscoring, the former Southampton, Fulham and Oxford marksman is by no means guaranteed a place with the new Sydenhams Wessex League leaders.

Last season's top scorer Neil Scammell marked his return from ankle ligament damage with a 15-minute run-out in Saturday's 3-2 win over Lymington & Milton, which put promotion-hungry Borough at the top of the Wessex pile for the first time in a decade.

But the most potent weapon in the Gosport armoury right now is the lesser-known 21-year-old, Graham Lindsey, who struck twice inside four minutes on Saturday to inflict more suffering on Linnets boss Ian Robinson.

The former Totton manager, who moved to Fawcett's Field in the summer, admitted: "People talk about Scammell's goals, but it always seems to be Lindsey who scores against my sides."

Fareham lad Lindsey was picked up by Gosport two seasons ago having netted goals galore for Fareham Sacred Hearts.

Looking back, Borough boss Mick Marsh can't believe the lack of competition he faced for the young gun's signature. He said: "Graham had scored about 70 goals in a season for the Sacred Hearts' Saturday and Sunday sides. I watched him a couple of times, got his phone number and when I met with him I was really surprised that we were the first club in the area to approach him.

"He said yes to joining us straight away and we put him on a contact. Last season he took time adjusting to the pace and strength of the game at this level, but he's starting to show now what we'd always hoped he would show."

With the Linnets labouring out of the starting blocks, Lindsey punished them on 21 minutes when he turned on a sixpence to complete a sweet passing move involving Mark Tryon and Stuart Hensman.

Three minutes later he was on target again with his seventh goal of the season, sneaking through a statue-like Lymington defence to bury a shot from Ian Rew's raking free kick from the left.

Until then, the Linnets had looked a shadow of the side that turfed Southern League outfit Erith & Belvedere out of the FA Cup a week earlier, but they dug deep into their reserves of character to claw a goal back after 31 minutes.

Patrick James found Ben Thomson lurking on the left and the nippy, little No9 from Calmore raced on to bury the return pass at the far post.

Lindsey spurned two headed chances to complete his hat-trick - the first hitting the outside of the post and the second forcing a flying save from Linnets' in-form keeper Alan Walker-Harris in the 32nd minute.

But the rest of the half belonged to the New Forest visitors, who managed to haul themselves back on terms two minutes into stoppage time when Thomson's low shot wriggled through giant keeper Mark Brown's hands, with a bit help from the bumpy Privett Park pitch.

It was Fraser Quirke, yet another of Gosport's stable of pedigree strikers, who undid all Lymington's good work with less than two second-half minutes played.

Summer signing Ian Dyer from Alton delivered a free kick from the left and former Bashley assistant manager Quirke nipped in front of his marker to hook Borough back into the lead.

The only surprise from an incredibly open second half was that there were no more goals. Lindsey, Hensman and Karl Lis all went close for Gosport, while Darren Curtis hooked an acrobatic shot just wide for Lymington and Paddy James skimmed an effort across the face of goal. As time ticked on, Linnets pushed and more bodies forward in a bid to salvage a point and nearly did so in injury time with a stinging half-volley from Paddy James which Brown tamed at the second attempt.

But it was Walker-Harris who ended up the busier keeper, saving smartly from Lindsey and substitute Danny Sturman after Scammell had let fly with a venomous blast which he did well to tip over.

"There were four or five weeks of anger in that shot from Neil," Marsh smiled. "I was disappointed with the way we conceded our 2-0 advantage and some poor defending contributed to their two goals. But I said to the lads at half-time that the best thing we could do was to go out and get ourselves an early goal and Fraser did that for us. He did really well today."

Defeated manager Robinson, whose new-look side face another stern test at Wimborne Town tomorrow, said: "This was our first real examination of the season and we failed it, but we deserved something out of the game. We showed a lot of character to get back into it and were well on top territorially in the second half.

"I'm not happy that we took so long to get started. For the first 20 or 25 minutes we were chasing shadows. The attitude of the players in the warm-up was a bit lethargic and it carried out onto the pitch."