Winchester City 3 Larkhall Athletic 1.

IT had been the kind of morning a football manager dreads.

With two players injured and three more falling ill overnight, the weekend didn’t exactly dawn brightly for Winchester City boss Craig Davis.

Attempting to solve a striker shortage, Davis put in a call to up-and-coming reserve player Ben Sunley, but he was on his way to Watford to watch Saints.

It wasn’t the ideal preparation for a potentially tough game at home to Larkhall Athletic, but the Citizens made light of their problems with a gritty 3-1 Evo-Stik South West win.

“It was a funny old morning,” said Davis.

“Danny King was already out injured, Rob Carr failed a fitness test and I got calls from Josh Harfield, Simba Mlambo and Pat Cox who had all been ill through the night.

“We tried to call in four of our young lads, but they had Hampshire games.

“In the end Coxy got off his sickbed and got through 70 minutes for us, which was a superb effort from him, otherwise we’d have been down to the bare bones.”

Davis himself played another full 90 minutes, less than 48 hours after the Southampton Senior Cup tie against Saints. Small wonder then that he was so delighted to see City victoriously climb to seventh.

“Circumstances were far from ideal. We lost players and had to change our shape against a good Larkhall team,” he said.

“For all those reasons I think this was probably our best win of the season.

“Larkhall are an absolutely massive team with physicality throughout, so we had a battle on our hands.”

The Larks started the stronger, but it was City who grabbed a tenth-minute lead when Dan Williamson powered down the right, cut inside and teed up skipper Jamie Barron to bury the ball from close range.

City keeper Ryan Pryce did well to fend off Alex Lambert’s low shot on 23 minutes but, from Joe Tumelty’s corner, Matt Britton rose unmarked to head home for 1-1.

For all the visitors’ aerial power, they had no answer to the shortest man on the field, Oli Bailey.

Time and time again, Winchester’s small but mighty marksman terrorised players almost twice his size and, within seconds of the restart, he was brought down by keeper Shaun Semmens for a penalty which skipper Barron whacked high into the net for 2-1.

The pair then combined for Winchester’s 62nd-minute third, Barron threading the ball from deep for Bailey to scamper clear and outwit Semmens one-on-one.

Larkhall remained a threat, but City defended manfully – none more so than Joe Cook, who got across just in the nick of time before Tumelty could pull the trigger.

Bailey’s goal was his 19th of the season and Davis said: “I can’t speak highly enough of him as a player and as a lad. His attitude is first class.

“He had to do a bit more defending today than he’s used to, but it was needs must.

“Coxy has 15 goals and Oli’s now got 19. They’ve been fantastic.”

Next up for the Citizens is a Wednesday night trip to Slimbridge (7.45pm).

Winchester City: Ryan Pryce, Joe Hayward, Andy Jenkinson, Liam Gilbert, Joe Cook, Craig Davis, Dan Williamson, Jamie Barron (Kieran Winman, 86), Oli Bailey, Pat Cox (IK Hill, 63), Adam Tomasso. Subs (not used): Riccardo Andrady, Harvey Clark, Gareth Byres.

Referee; Martin Bloor.

Attendance: 155