GOATACRE boosted their chances of survival with a hard-fought 16-run victory on their trip to Lechlade.

A battling 86 from opener Jack Haines helped Ed Wilkins’ men post 230 at the Manor Ground, with a flurry of late hitting from Toby Horton (45) also a big factor in that total.

Lechlade captain Joe Breet claimed 5-44 with the ball, although will be disappointed that his side let their visitors off the hook having had them on the ropes early on.

Matt House (1-22) dismissed home opener Jack Palmer cheaply at the start of the Lechlade reply but the efforts of Brad Dial (55) and Benny Ellis (41) saw them make their way to 122-2 and seemingly well on course for victory.

However, the Goats’ attack stuck to their guns and Rob Murphy (3-46) led the charge to dry up the runs in the final few overs.

Lechlade were still some way short of their target by the time their 50 overs were completed and could only finish on a disappointing 214-7.

The win was the third in the last four games for the Goats and they are now up to fourth from bottom in the table, sitting 12 points clear of the relegation zone.

Delighted skipper Wilkins said: “A few weeks ago we set our stall out as we had a run of games against teams around us in the table and we wanted to try to win three of those if we could.

“With Saturday’s result we have already done that and we’ve actually pulled ourselves above Lechlade and a bit further away from the bottom two.

“We were happy with the score we set in the first innings. We didn’t get off to the best of starts and at one stage we were about 90-5 so when we finished on 230 we thought that was pretty decent.

“We took some early wickets in their reply but then they had quite a good partnership which brought them back into it.

“It always looked like it was going to be a close finish and they were probably the favourites but we bowled really tightly and sensibly at the end to restrict them.

“Kevin Iles, Matt House and Rob Murphy all did a really great job of keeping them under control.”

Potterne remain top of the table despite falling to a four-wicket defeat against Keynsham.

Good knocks from Sahan Wijerathne (82), Ed Young (80*) and Tom Cullen (78) helped Potterne post a mammoth 327-3 but that was still not enough.

James Turpin (72*) led Keynsham past the target in the penultimate over for the loss of six wickets.