At the seventh attempt, Eastleigh won for the first time at Altrincham, thanks to a Maguire penalty converted in the 72nd minute. It came after Quigley had been upended in the box by Haygarth.

The penalty materialised after a rehearsed Eastleigh freekick seemed to have gone wrong but, following four or five passes, the move ended with the foul on Quigley inside the box.

The match itself lacked goalmouth excitement until after the Eastligh goal when Altrincham went hard for an equaliser but they squandered a couple of chances and were denied two penalty appeals. Before that their best chance today came from a fierce low cross from the left by Amaluzor which Banks instinctively diverted towards goal, only for keeper McDonnell to make an important block (62 mins).

Alty have scored just twice in four games this season.

SCORERS:

• 72 mins: Chris Maguire (penalty) (ALTRINCHAM 0 Eastleigh 1)

Joe Nuttall replaced Regan Linney as Alty's striker today. On the bench, there was a surprise as goalkeeper Harvey Randle appeared on the teamsheet, unheralded, having been with Alvechurch in the Midlands. He replaced Academy keeper Louis Fallon as the deputy to Ethan Ross. Another change on the bench saw Owen German named for the first time this season in place of Lucas Weaver.

Indeed, Lucas Weaver was seated in the directors' box as was Remi Thompson. Other less predictable occupants of directors' box seats were Justin Donawa with his wife and young baby. Donawa was invited back to prove his fitness this summer but did not appear in any of the pre-season fixtures. However, it appears that he still has aspirations to rejoin the club.

Eddy Jones was absent, completing his suspension, whilst Isaac Marriott and Ollie Crankshaw remained sidelined by injury. Crankshaw did take part in the warm-up, however.

Surprisingly, Eastleigh made a host of changes and were without injured winger Sotano and striker Paul McCallum who had suffered a hamstring injury in midweek.

LINE-UPS:

ALTRINCHAM Red and white striped shirts, black shorts, white socks): 1. Ethan ROSS, 2. Lewis BANKS, 4. Lewis BAINES (c), 16. James JONES, 23. Tylor GOLDEN, 6. Elliot OSBORNE, 22. Tom CRAWFORD, 10. Alex NEWBY, 21. Max HAYGARTH, 11. Justin AMALUZOR, 24. Joe NUTTALL. Subs: 5. Jake COOPER, 9. Regan LINNEY, 19. George WILSON, 7. Matty KOSYLO 15. Kahrel REDDIN, 18. Owen GERMAN, 30. Harvey RANDLE (gk).

EASTLEIGH (All yellow): 1. Joe McDonnell, 3. Jake Vokins, 4. Lloyd Humphries, 6. Ludwig Francillette, 7. Chris Maguire, 8. Jake Taylor (C), 10. Tyrese Shade, 18. Angel Waruih, 23. Jai Semenyo, 20. Scott Quigley, 31. Niall Maher. Unused subs: 5. Luis Fernandez, 13. Tommy Scott (GK), 14. Lee Hodson, 19. Corey Panter, 21. Noa Boutin, 28. Nathan Rogers, 29. Malachi Dotse.

Eastleigh arrived with a flawless league record and topped the table after winning their opening three fixtures of the season.

However, last season they had been beaten 4-0 by Altrincham in the corresponding fixture at the JDS. In fact, Eastleigh had not won any of the six games in which they had previously played at Moss Lane.

On an excellent playing surace, Eastleigh kicked off towards the Golf Road end. After a few uneventful minutes Alty won a corner off Francillette on their left (7 mins). Whether by accident or design Altrincham were playing a more direct style than their traditional passing game from the back.

Having won a freekick for handball by Maguire, Alty had a promising freekick just outside the box but Newby put this disappointingly well over the bar (15 mins). Altrincham were now having slightly the better of things before a foul on Golden by Waruih necessitated a stoppage for treatment to the Alty right-back, with the other players taking advantage to declare a unilateral drinks' break on this sunny, if breezy, afternoon (21 mins).

Despite the players' best efforts, the game had produced no hint of a goal before the recovered Golden played a promising one-two with Haygarth only for the defender to get his feet in a tangle inside the box and produce a weak shot that ran to McDonnell (35 mins).

At the other end, Eastligh's Vokins, like Golden, got forward at the end of a run by Shade, only to slice his shot off target (38 mins). Then Nuttall laid the ball off for Amaluzor who was unable to get in a shot before an opppnent cleared the ball.

As half-time neared, Haygarth had a shot beaten out at the near-post but the linemsan's flag had gone up in any case (41 mins).

From a freekick for Eastleigh, Francillette almost got on the end of the crossed ball but that was as close to a goal as the first half was to produce.

However, there was time for Haygarth to get booked, after an error by James Jones (44 mins). And so ended a first half of reasonable endeavour but scant quality and minimal goalmouth activity.

After the visitors had kicked off the second half, the Eastleigh captain, Taylor, found himself booked for a rugged challenge on Amaluzor (50 mins). Curiously Banks was also shown a yellow card in the same incident .

Next, a rare good move saw Altrincham get forward but Amaluzor could only find the sidenetting from a Haygarth feed (51 mins).

James Jones now needed treatment, which necessitated the use of a blood shirt (54 mins). Almost immediately, another stoppage was needed for treatment to Maguire of Eastleigh.

Next, a cross from Newby located Golden but he headed disappointingly wide (56 mins).

The first corner of the half came for Eastleigh just before the hour mark but nothing came of it .

Then came the best chance of the game so far as Haygarth fed Amaluzor on the left and his fierce low cross was diverted towards goal from close range by Banks but the Eastleigh keeper diverted it away (62 mins).

Play was now a bit more open than it had been in the diappointing first half and, when Linney was introduced instead of Nuttall, the hope was that Alty would up their game further (67 mins).

A rare shot on goal arrived from Eastleigh as Quigley's 20-yarder was comfortably saved by Ross (69 mins).

A foul by Crawford was to prove the catalyst to the decisive moment of the game. From about 28 yards, the Hampshire side played a rehearsed move which seemed to have foundered as four or five passes later there was no threat to the Alty goal. Then, as Quigley got ito the box, he was brought down by Haygarth and a penalty was awarded (71 mins).

From the spot, Maguire found the right-hand side of the net with Ross diving the other way, to his right (72 mins)

Reddin who had been readied before the penalty, immediately came on in place of Haygarth.

Soon Reddin made an impression with a smart turn and run on the right wing (76 mins).

Following this, Panter came on in midfield for the visitors in place of Shade (79 mins).

Reddin's direct running next produced a rare Altrincham corner (81 ins). And Newby's corner from the right fell for Reddin but the winger seemed to slip as he hit the ball well wide from a good position (82 mins).

Alty were now showing an urgency which had been lacking earlier, as Amaluzor now won anpther corner (83 mins). Semenyo was now replaced by Hodson for Eastleigh (84 mins) before a fine through ball from Osborne found Newby but his control deserted him in the box (86 mins).

Six minutes of added time saw Boutin make his debut for Eastleigh in place of Vokins (90+2 mins).

An appeal for a penalty when Linney went down in the box now came to nothing (90+3 mins), before Eastleigh saw out time with a spell of keep-ball by the corber flag. The final action saw Crawford feed Reddin who went down under a challenge, in the right-side of the box, but the referee showed no interest in awarding a penalty (90+6 mins).