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It was Rovers’ first league defeat away from the Moat Ground for a year – a statistic crucial to their Banks’s League title challenge.

If Gresley can put the Lye defeat behind them and embark on another long unbeaten run away from home it will stand them in good stead – for no fewer than eight of their remaining 10 league games are on opposition territory.

It’s no surprise to many Gresley followers that Rovers’ fare so much better away than they do at home. For most Banks’s League sides, a trip to the Moat Ground is the Big Day Out of the season.

Crowds are bigger at Gresley than anywhere else in the league, and the Moatmen have been near the top of the heap for so long that they are the side that everyone wants to beat.

Manager Frank Northwood accepts this, saying: “Most sides come to Gresley to shut up shop and play for a draw. That’s why we have to try and be patient and break them down. The crowd must be patient too.”

Sadly, elements of the Gresley crowd do not respond to repeated entreaties to get behind their side, adding to the pressures that do not exist on away territory.

On Monday night, Gresley faced a different kind of problem – a side highly motivated to knock them off the top of the table. Lye were as fired up as any side Gresley have played yet this term – and the Moatmen were outfought.

And Northwood will be fully aware that tomorrow’s trip to Hinckley Town presents an equal – if not more difficult – challenge.

In three previous visits Gresley have not even managed a draw against a side that remain on the fringes of the title battle.

Indeed, until Monday Town were the last side to beat Gresley away from the Moat Ground, hammering Rovers 4-0 towards the end of last season. And they will be looking for a repeat tomorrow.

Gresley face trips to Rushall, Rocester, Harrisons, Oldbury, Chasetown, Malvern and Wolverhampton Casuals with home games against Wolverhampton Casuals and Hinckley Athletic completing a daunting run-in.