Rushden continued to exert plenty of pressure during the first 25 minutes. Paul Underwood shot wide of the right hand post and there was another moment when the Yeovil defence seemed to be all over the place. Simpson and Hannigan both left balls inside their own area, but Rushden were not decisive enough to capitalise. Their best chance came when Al-James failed to close down Darren Bradshaw and an intelligent knock-back by Colin West was blasted wide by Carl Heggs. During this time Yeovil had only made one real chance when Steve Stott received a rebound off a Rushden defender, but he tried to lob the keeper and his shot skewed horribly wide.

Yet somehow Yeovil took the lead in the 27th minute. Rob Cousins ran forward with the ball and his rifle shot crashed off the cross-bar leaving Rushden keeper Mark Smith stranded. From the rebound, Warren PATMORE flicked the ball past Smith a second time and somewhat against the run of play Yeovil had the lead with Patmore racing 90 yards to the Yeovil supporters at the opposite end, raising one finger to indicate how many goals he believed he needed to reach his ton at Yeovil.

Not content one goal, Yeovil's next chance three minutes later put them 2-0 up. Warren Patmore put Murray Fishlock away on the left wing, and his low cross went across the face of the goal, and with the Rushden defence seemingly either leaving it for each other or thinking the ball was going out of play, in slid David PIPER at the far post from two yards.

It seemed at this point that Rushden, despite all their early promise, gave up on the match and the title race. Looking shell-shocked and unpassionate, they allowed first Hannigan to head narrowly wide of the left hand post with the keeper beaten, then Owen Pickard did the same to the opposite side of the goal.Hannigan got booked for a foul on Paul Underwood, but even the ex-Enfield man looked embarrassed at the decision, apologising to Hannigan as he ran past.

Rushden's Carl Heggs and Ben Smith both got themselves into the book, with Smith's being supposedly for a foul on Mark Cooper. The tackle had come from behind, yet Smith had won the ball, and his frustration at the referee's whistle and the card produced, threatened to produce a repeat during the next five minute's whilst Ben's temper gradually subsided.

Rushden made a last gasp double-substitution on 73 minutes, with Chris Whyte and Tim Wooding put on for Jon Brady and Guy Branston. Whyte, normally a defender, was amusingly put up front, and this was clearly do or die tactics from Rushden. Malcolm Rigby came under increasing pressure from Rushden's numerous corners (I can't believe Matchfacts only counted four!) and with five minutes remaining Jim Rodwell rattled the crossbar, but largely Kevan Brown, Rigby and Hannigan were making light work of poor crosses.

Yeovil still threatened on the break, largely through Patmore and Smith, with Underwood entering the referee's notebook for the one bad foul of the night on Smith. With three minutes remaining Ben had a chance to seal the game, after a Patmore knock-down, but both keeper and defender blocked his angled shot.