Beverley travelled to St. Marys to take on St. Andrews knowing that a victory would most likely mean retaining the Humber Premier League title.
With a number of absentees, Town had to use their squad and several reserves and academy team players were given the opportunity to stake a claim for a place.
Tom Davies, and Connor Binney both made starts with strikers Jamie Cording and Dan Walker also taking their place on the bench.
Beverley, although enjoying the majority of possession were failing to have any real impact on the game, with numerous passes breaking down in the final third.
It was the home team that were looking more threatening on the break, with the champions being very poor out of possession.
Eventually, St. Andrews broke through the Town back four when a ball through split the centre backs, and the home team striker rounded goalkeeper Adam Nicholson and tapped home into an empty net.
The score was nearly doubled when a poor back pass by Davies was intercepted, but the home team forward was thwarted by goalkeeper Nicholson.
The away team were struggling with very slow build up play, but they did start to build a little pressure before half-time, but opportunities were squandered with Andrew Stott, although working very hard failing to hit the target a couple of times.
After some stern words at the break manager Dave Ricardo made a couple of changes with Cording and Walker entering proceedings.
The changes meant Jamie Forrester moving into the middle, and he started to have more of an influence on the game, linking well with Nathan White and Mike O’Connell.
Town were now having much more of proceedings and good combination play between Jack Tramner, and Walker led to the ball dropping to Danny Norton in the penalty area, and he drilled home into the bottom corner.
Beverley were now in control and Cording smashed a half-volley against the bar. More good work from Cording led to him winning the ball back high up the pitch, and he squared to O’Connell who took his time to place home in the bottom corner.
Walker then had a great opportunity to finish the game of from a lovely cross from Norton, but his header rebounded of the post, and the rebound could not be forced home.
With the game coming to an end, Stott finished well making the game secure.
This wasn’t the best performance of the season by Beverley but after a very hectic schedule and with so many players missing, it maybe was not surprising that they lacked a little cohesion and fluidity.
Although this virtually guarantees the league title, mathematically a point is still needed, all be it having a 21 goal difference better than their nearest opponent.
There were no celebrations from Town as they now move onto a very difficult game this weekend against Crown who inflicted the only league defeat of the season last campaign.
Beverley have won 20 away games in a row, and will want to sustain this record and gain the one point that will secure their second title in as many years.
