Robin Hood and North Village both fell off the pace in the title race yesterday as Dandy Town’s ninth win in 11 games extended their lead at the top of the Premier Division to nine points.

Hood, second, and Village, third, coming into the weekend’s fixtures, were both hoping for wins to close the gap.

However, Hood went down 2-0 to PHC Zebras while Village lost to Town 2-1 at St John’s Field for the second straight weekend as Quadir Maynard netted a goal in each half for the home side.

“That second goal by Quadir was very important, it came at a critical stage early in the second half and did the world of good for us because we needed that cushion,” Jomar Wilkinson, the Town coach, said.

“Village are a team who are going to have their attacking spells, so we knew we had to be sound defensively and we did that once again. We will have to dig deep to bring this championship home and the boys are showing they have the character to dig deep.”

The Town bench was hearing progress from Hood’s match against PHC so they knew what the three points would do for their title aspirations.

“We understand every game is important but we’re taking it one game at a time,” Wilkinson said.

“We’re looking to give honest efforts and as long as we give honest efforts we’ll get positive results. Sometimes it’s not going to look pretty, today it was all about the result.”

Richard Todd virtually conceded that Village are out of the title race, as he now looks for a top-four finish in his first season at the helm.

“Today three under-20 national team players started and for me this is the importance, that we have to start to give them the match time they need in order to develop,” he said.

One of them, Rai Sampson, was sent off late in the match for foul language as Village were reduced to ten men at a critical stage of the game.

“It’s unfortunate for Rai, but he’ll have to learn what is appropriate to say to the referee,” Todd said.

Village pulled a goal back through captain Keishen Bean who came on as a second-half substitute. The defeat has all but ruled Village out of the title race as they trail Town by 12 points.

“We thought today we could apply a little bit of pressure, but now we’re 12 points off Dandy Town,” Todd said. “That’s not the primary focus, I want us to continue to work on developing our game and we’ll finish as high as we can.

“The early season target for me was putting us back in contention, finishing in the top four and I think we’re ticking those boxes.

“I think Jomar [Wilkinson] would say that in the three matches we played we really pressed them, so it will come.”

Town regained their nine-point lead over Hood, with PHC a point behind in third place after leapfrogging Village.

At the other end of the table, the relegation fight has become tighter with Devonshire Cougars moving off the bottom on Friday with victory over Hamilton Parish while Bouelvard climbed above Southampton Rangers, Devonshire Cougars and Devonshire Colts after their 5-1 triumph at Southampton Oval, inspired by two goals by Ian Coke and another by former Rangers defender, Maquel Tankard.

Mikre Pace, the Boulevard assistant coach, said: “These points were probably the most valuable of all our games so far because it puts Rangers firmly behind us, puts Cougars back behind us while we jumped over Devonshire Colts.

“We took a long time to gel but now it’s there and hopefully we can keep pressing forward and scoring more goals.

“I’m always pleased when we score goals but even more pleased with my defence because we are conceding fewer goals now. Before we were conceding three goals almost every game.”

A Cecoy Robinson brace and a first-minute goal from Casey Castle helped PHC Zebras beat Hood at Goose Gosling Field yesterday.

“I thought defensively we were very solid,” Mark Wade, the PHC coach, said. “I think we showed a lot of grit and overall I’m pretty happy.”