Nailers remain unbeaten on their travels

From the opening 10 minutes it looked as if it would be another close game, as Belper struggled to keep hold of the ball and gave Carlton a number of opportunities to run at their goal.

The clearest chance of the opening half for Carlton came when the ball was played in from a left wing corner. It was headed towards the feet of a Carlton forward just 6 yards out, however his shot flew harmlessly over the crossbar.

The opening goal of the game came just before the interval after Ruben Wiggins-Thomas was brought down in the penalty area by Carlton forward Shaun Rickford who barged into Wiggins-Thomas from behind.

After a long discussion between the referee and his linesman they decided to award the penalty, triggering a chorus of disapproval from the home fans.

Alex Steadman (pictured) stepped up and slotted the penalty into the top right hand corner of the goal, way out of the reach of Millers 'keeper Jack Steggles.

Despite taking their lead into the break, the Nailers would have been hoping to get more of a hold on the game in the second period and not inviting pressure on their goal, as they had in the opening 45 minutes..

Michael Armstrong was substituted at the interval allowing new signing, Ryan King to make his debut. The 19 year old winger joined the Nailers from Matlock Town and manager Charlie Palmer is hoping that the youngster will add pace and width to the squad.

This meant a change of formation for the Nailers as they went from a 4-4-2 to their regular 4-3-3, with King joining the Nailers attack.

This change of formation seemed to give the Nailers more control in the game early in the second period as they created more opportunities going forward with intelligent runs from Ruben Wiggins-Thomas and Kyle Bryant causing problems for the Carlton defence.

Unfortunately, the Nailers failed to turn any of these forays into clear goal scoring opportunities and gradually Carlton began to turn the tables and control large parts of the game, with the Nailers again struggling to keep hold of the ball for any length of time.

The Millers were pumping a stream of crosses into the penalty area looking to cause the problems, however the Belper defence were dominant in the air, particularly Charlie Gatter and Phil Watt, who dealt competently with everything thrown at them.

Danny Haystead also handled the ball immaculately, to give added confidence to his fellow defenders.

The closest that Carlton came to equalising stemmed from a long ball forward to Daniel Gordon which caught out the Belper rearguard but as he reached the edge of the penalty area he shot disappointingly straight at Danny Haystead.

In the end, the Nailers held on to secure their second league win of the season and a hard earned three points.