ROYAL Wootton Bassett Town struck twice in stoppage time to claim a thrilling victory over Brimscombe & Thrupp in the only game to beat the wet Swindon weather on Saturday.

Ben Deakin’s goal for the visitors inside the opening 10 minutes looked to have decided this Premier Division contest at the Gerard Buxton Sports Ground, only for Bassett to mount a dramatic late fightback.

Joe Hiscock sent a looping header into the top corner to restore parity as the clocked ticked past the 90-minute mark before Dan Bailey won the game for the hosts from the final attack, lashing home after the ball pinged around the Briscombe box.

Having been thrashed 8-0 at local rivals Highworth Town on Bank Holiday Monday, Bassett boss Paul Braithwaite hailed the response of his players.

“After the mauling against Highworth the players had a meeting and fair dues to them, they have paid for the people who went to Highworth to come in today out of their own pocket,” said Braithwaite.

“They don’t get paid a penny, so for the players to put their own money in is decent. That shows that they wanted to put things right today, so from that point of view I think they deserve it.

“In the first 15 minutes you could see the last game was hanging over us a bit, we were very nervous but we changed our formation to try to be a bit more positive and have a bit more width.

“None of us got it right last week, me or the players. It was a joint effort but this week I think we got it spot on and we deserved that result.”

Having trailed for almost the entire match only to win it at the death, Bassett would have been fortunate to finish with one point, let alone all three.

Although Braithwaite admitted a draw would probably have been the right result, given Bassett’s refusal to give up, he thought they were worthy winners.

“Their keeper made a few good saves and there was a little bit of a feeling that it was going to be one of those days as we hadn’t scored in three games,” said Braithwaite.

“Personally, I think a point would have been fair, the fact that we have managed to get that one extra goal late on is great.

“It would have been easy for us to have sat back after being beaten 8-0 last week and said we’ll go 5-4-1 and take a point, but we didn’t want to do that.

“We were saying just go for it at the end and we knew that as there was only a minute to go, as long as the ball went one way and we got it back, we could get something from it.

“For the fact we were ballsy and had the desire to go and get the second goal then we deserved it, but on reflection of the whole game then possibly a 1-1 was fair.

“But at the end of the day, we’ve score two and we’ll take the three points and the win.”