Liam Adamson’s 32nd minute strike proved the difference between the sides on a windy night at the Welfare Park.

It was a very physical battle at the Welfare Park, and there wasn’t a huge amount of clear cut chances.

Upon kick-off at the Welfare Park, the first chance of the game fell the way of Adamson in the fifth minute, but he couldn’t find the target with a shot.

Physicality was the order of the game in the opening quarter of an hour, with the wind also having an impact. If you came to the Welfare Park looking for free flowing passing football, you were to be disappointed from this one.

In the 22nd minute, Adamson and Stanton linked up to find Liam Cooke, and his effort looked dangerous, but it took a deflection and proved easy for the goalkeeper.

Seconds later, at the other end, Yarm created their first chance and James Hopkinson was forced to push a shot behind for a corner.

Ten minutes later, in the 32nd minute, Adamson scored the game’s only goal. Liam picked the ball up on the left and drifted across the penalty area before taking aim. The shot was aimed at the near post, and that’s exactly where it found to put the Green Army ahead.

The Colliers had a shout for a penalty in first half additional time when the ball seemed to strike a Yarm hand in the area, but the appeals were waved away.

Following the break, the Colliers had a couple of good chances to double the lead in the 52nd minute. A header from a corner forced a good save from Lee Roberts, and an effort from the resulting second corner was cleared off the line.

Not a great deal happened in front of goal for the rest of the game, but that wasn’t a bad thing from an Easington perspective.

The Colliers were defending well, and Yarm weren’t really creating anything.

With 10 minutes to play, Adamson looked to be through on goal from Hopkinson’s long goal kick, but the assistant’s flag went up for offside. We all know you can’t be offside from a goal kick, and the assistant apologised, but the referee didn’t overrule it. A shout from the crowd towards the referee ended up with Olly Hotchkiss being booked, and then Marc Hopkinson was booked too. Dane Eltringham was then sin binned after a foul seconds later. Ultimately, all of these cautions boiled down to frustrations from a mistake from the officials around a basic rule, and it meant the Colliers had to play the final 10 minutes with 10 men.

Thankfully, the Colliers continued to manage the game well, and they saw it out to claim another impressive three points.

It wasn’t pretty, but it was another three points to put the Colliers on 28 points from the first 11 games.

Full-time: Easington Colliery 1-0 Yarm & Eaglescliffe

Easington Colliery: Hopkinson, Agnew, Eltringham, Hennis, Ord, Bott (c), Cooke (Pearn, 85′), Maw, Stanton, Herron (Tapping, 62′), Adamson (Kenney, 85′)

Unused subs: Anderson, Greenwood

Yarm & Eaglescliffe: Roberts, Joe Dalton (Cofinas, 79′), Marshall, Jack Dalton, Wild (c), McWilliams, Fixter, Larkin, Williams (Dougall, 89′), Roberts, Jones (McMann, 56′)

Unused subs: Bulmer, Stewart-Titchiner

Attendance: 161

Referee: Dillon Bloomfield