GUISELEY returned to winning ways on Tuesday evening with a 2-1 victory away at Atherton Collieries to keep their play-off push alive.

Second half strikes from Liam Tongue and Gabriel Johnson were enough for the visitors to come away with all three points meaning the side from Nethermoor now found themselves 6th in the Northern Premier League Premier Division.

The first meaningful opportunity of the match was for the hosts, however, but Battersby reacted well to tip Caine's pinpoint header over the bar, and the resulting corner was well marshalled by the Lions’ backline.

The away side’s first chance arrived on the 27th minute and they had the ball in the net only for it to be disallowed for offside.

A Nsaka low strike was well saved by Atherton’s stopper and there was Johnson to tap home, but the linesman had his flag up to the visitors’ frustration.

Guiseley’s opener came in the 57th minute of the contest as both sides continued to push for an edge in this fixture.

Tongue collected the ball just inside the box before drilling a fierce low effort into the back of the home side’s goal to break the deadlock.

The Lions doubled their lead just over a quarter of an hour later through Johnson, and this time the goal stood, and what an effort it was.

Guiseley’s No10 jinked his way through a couple of challenges before expertly finishing his opportunity to put the visitors in a strong position going into the final stages of the game.

However, on minute 79 Atherton pulled one back to deny the Lions a clean sheet and to also set up a tense finale.

Despite that, Guiseley held on to a valuable three points and they now head into this Saturday’s home match against league leaders Radcliffe with a degree of confidence.

Lions’ manager Andy Welsh admitted that it was key for his side to learn and bounce back from defeat in their last game against Stafford Rangers on February 24.

Speaking to Guiseley’s official website, the boss said: “It was important for us to learn from defeat at Stafford and I feel we’ve done that today.

“Atherton threw everything at us in the first 15 minutes of the game, and we knew they would because of their position in the league (21st).

“After that opening period, we settled into the game and started to create some chances of our own.

“In the second half we moved the ball far quicker, and if I’m being picky, it could have been moved around even quicker, but we put on a real resilient and confident display after half-time which I’m really pleased about.”

He added: “This weekend against Stafford is going to be tough because their coaching team have put a great squad together there.

“It’s important for us to focus on ourselves and then hopefully we can upset the party, which will be a tough task, of course.”