The deadly frontline partnership of Paul Sales and Matt Tubbs again paid dividends for Southern Premier leaders Salisbury City in last night's 1-0 win at Merthyr Tydfil.

After dominating early proceedings, Whites got the goal their pressure merited in time added on at the end of the first half.

Sales, pictured left, used his aerial strength to head on Craig Davis's corner for Tubbs to nip in and score.

Tubbs had had City's first chance on 11 minutes when he sent a right-foot volley wide from Wayne Turk's cross.

With Alex Haddow causing Merthyr all sorts of problems, Tommy Widdrington had a drive deflected over, Haddow himself was foiled by the keeper at his near post and then the former Eastleigh wideman created near misses for Davis and Sales.

Merthyr were a different proposition in the second half, but the nearest they came to scoring was a Craig Steins breakaway on 47 minutes which keeper Kevin Sawyer blocked well.

Victory ended a run of four straight away defeats for Salisbury which, ironically, had started at Merthyr in the FA Cup.

Satisfied boss Nick Holmes summed up: "It was a good performance over 90 minutes. We dominated the first half and then they got a bit physical and started putting long stuff at us, but I thought we handled it well.

"Our two centre-halves (Aaron Cook and Ian Richardson) coped pretty well and when the ball got into our six-yard box, Kevin Sawyer dealt with everything. Merthyr didn't really cause us too many problems.

"Heading into Christmas, we're exactly where we want to be."