PHOTO | Johnathan Williams hammers the penalty past Ben Chapman (Pic: Tim Harrison)
Jonathan Williams scored the all important penalty as the underdogs got an excellent win.
This came after Evan Garnett was brought down by a Leek defender; although the referee originally signalled for a free kick.
But after the referee had a discussion with his assistant; he pointed to the spot; giving Williams yet another chance to be the hero for the Nailers with only five minutes to go.
Leek continued to push and gave the Nailers an extremely nervy ending with a number of corners and dangerous long balls forward.
Eric Graves made an excellent clearance off of the line from a Leek corner to keep his side in the lead.
This came after Scott Low made an unbelievable finger tip save to push away what looked to be a certain equaliser for Leek.
The Nailers defended well for the entire game; but the stand out player was Haydn Goddard who played at left back for the first time in a Belper shirt.
Goddard seemed to end every attack that came down his side; with some clever interceptions and seemingly knowing what the winger would do before the ball even reached his feet.
Alongside this; Goddard played the ball excellently and started a number of his side's attacks, showing that he can be a very effective player at either side of the pitch.
It was fair to say that Leek had the better of the first half; with them constantly under pressure and Leek attacking with a lot of force.
But Belper restricted the home side to very few chances and prevented them from creating anything truly clear cut.
This couldn’t be further from the truth in the second half however; with Belper beginning to get the better of the proceedings and piling pressure on with every moment of possession.
The main difficulty for the Nailers was getting past the exceptional Francino Francis; the centre back seemed to be in the way for almost all of the promising attacks that Belper had.
After Tuesday’s disappointing late goal; the Nailers will be glad to have it go their way this time around and more importantly they’ll be glad to be back to winning ways.