Willenhall Town 3 - Kendal Town 1.

FORM team Willenhall Town's strong promotion push rolled on at the weekend as they defeated Kendal Town 3-1.

The West Midlands outfit have not been beaten since December 4 when they were ironically defeated by Kendal in the reverse fixture.

Looking back on this game Kendal, having won the toss, will surely feel that they failed to ask enough questions of the second-placed side in a first half when the visitors had the strong wind in their favour.

Key centre-half Dene Whittal-Williams, who had been expected to return to the side, missed out after picking up an ankle injury at work, but Nigel Taylor came back into the defence following an ankle injury.

Two long-range attempts on target was the best Kendal could conjure up in the first period whereas the hosts were able to force two good saves from goalkeeper Mark Thornley, who put in a fine display.

From the restart Kendal went close to opening the scoring. Paul Rigby released Peter Smith down the right and David Foster met his cross on the volley forcing a fine one-handed save from home keeper Nathan Vaughan.

Thornley had just saved well from Willenhall's Matty Webb before the deadlock was broken when Gary Hay forced the ball over after a goalmouth scramble.

Three minutres later the lead was doubled when Phil Rowe's 20 yard effort found the bottom corner In reply, Lee Ashcroft had a goal-bound effort cleared off the line and moments later Russ McKenna blazed his shot over from the edge of the box.

On 83 minutes Thornley pulled of a stunning point-blank save from home captain Mark Creighton, but was powerless to prevent sub Dean Perrow from netting at the far post a minute from time.

Kendal claimed a consolation goal when Peter Smith stroked home a cross from sub Chris Bennett deep into added time.

How they rated: Thornley 8; Rigby 7 (Bennett 6 from 74 minutes), McKenna 7, Woodruffe 6, Taylor 7; Smith 7, Mercer 6, Kilford 6 (McMenemy 6 from 74 minutes), Ashcroft 6; Foster 6, Mayers 6.