Truro City moved back to within a point of league leaders Worthing, after a dominant victory over 10-man Salisbury. 

Defeat keeps the Whites firmly entrenched in a relegation battle, while at the other end of the table, City took advantage of Worthing’s surprise 2-0 defeat at struggling Welling United. 

Tyler Harvey was City’s matchwinner, netting the only goal of the game from the penalty spot, seven minutes before the break. 

And despite dominating territory and possession after the turnaround, City couldn’t convert their superiority into further goals. Substitute Dominic Johnson-Fisher had City’s best chance, firing wide after a brilliant individual run as time ticked down. 

Salisbury’s woes were then compounded late in the piece when Josh Hedges was sent off for a second yellow card, with Truro seeing the game out with minimal fuss. 

In front of a calendar year’s best home crowd on Non-League Day, City boss John Askey named the same starting line-up that lost 3-2 at Enfield in dramatic circumstances seven days previously.

For Salisbury, they fielded both former City loan duo Finn Tonks and Lewis Brown. Both players made a handful of appearances for the Tinners at the back end of last term, on loan from parent club AFC Bournemouth. 

Both sides started the match positively with Tonks stealing an early march on the City defence and almost creating a goalscoring opportunity. At the other end, Luke Jephcott’s rising effort failed to trouble Rhys Byrne in the Salisbury goal. 

Harvey glanced a teasing Riley-Lowe flag kick just wide of the mark, with City also peppering the home goal with a succession of corners and free-kicks in the early stages. 

Salisbury’s clearest goalscoring opportunity came after 22 minutes when defender Sam German picked up the ball in the box, but he couldn’t call Dan Lavercombe into action and shot wide. 

Zac Bell, like Jephcott earlier in the half, had a sighter from the edge of the area before the game’s decisive moment arrived as half-time approached. 

Christian Oxlade-Chamberlain fired a long throw into a dangerous area and Byrne came, but didn’t claim. Riley-Lowe looked to pick up the scraps but was impeded, as the referee Tom Ellsmore pointed to the spot. 

Up stepped Harvey, who sent Byrne the wrong way to bag his 24th goal of the season, beating his best ever return in a City shirt, which came during the 2018-19 campaign. 

It was also Harvey’s seventh goal in his last four games, with the 29-year-old now level with Boreham Wood’s Kwesi Appiah, in the race for National League South’s golden boot.

City had one,but they wanted more and deliciously teasing balls into the corridor of uncertainty from both Jaze Kabia and Jephcott had Riley-Lowe a whisker away from rekindling his penchant for Saturday scoring. 

The beleaguered and second-best visitors would have been relieved to hear the half-time whistle but the second stanza gave little respite from City’s position of ascendency. 

Harvey headed wide again in the second period’s early moments, but Salisbury, to their credit, sat in and were proving to be a tough nut to crack. 

However, their defensive efforts came at the expense of any real attacking threat as City’s defenders and goalkeeper Lavercombe enjoyed a trouble-free remainder of the game. 

With 23 minutes left, another Oxlade-Chamberlain missile was nearly turned home after a goalmouth scramble as a Dean free-kick went narrowly past Byrne’s upright. 

The outstanding Yassine En-Neyah stung the palms of the visiting incumbent and was also denied from the follow-up as Truro kept plugging away in search of a second. 

Johnson-Fisher, thrust into the fray with 15 minutes left, nearly produced a moment of individual magic, when he left three Salisbury defenders in his wake, before firing just wide of the goal with Byrne beaten all ends up. 

Hedges, who was booked for dissent in the first half, then pressed the self-destruct button two minutes from time, when he shoved Bell over off the ball, leaving the merry whistle blower with little option other than to reach for his top pocket. 

Despite their numerical advantage, City couldn’t add to their tally as they signed off at home with three points until the small matter of a Good Friday clash against Torquay United.

Match Facts

City: Lavercombe, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Dean, Law, Bell, En-Neyah, Rooney, Riley-Lowe, Jephcott, Harvey, Kabia (Johnson-Fisher, 75). Sub not used: Sanders, Palfrey, Neal, Love-Holmes.

Salisbury: Byrne, Tonks (Perez, 78), German, Dore, Sommerton; Watts, Brown (Jombati, 45), Gregory (Silva, 70), Raguette; Hedges, Fitchett (Fasanmade, 63). Sub not used: Legett.

Referee: Tom Ellsmore

Attendance: 1967