Conference.

Forest Green Rovers 2 - Northwich Victoria 1.

JIM HARVEY gave substitute Paul Stonehouse a licence to thrill and the 19-year-old winger certainly delivered with a dream 69th minute winner that pushed Forest Green up to 16th in the table.

Incredibly, Stonehouse had come off the bench just four minutes earlier, to leave Northwich Victoria shaken and stirred as he rifled home his first Conference goal of his fledgling career.

Stonehouse, a graduate from the Forest Green Academy, revealed he drew on Harvey's positive input before his dramatic entrance.

Stonehouse said:"The gaffer (Harvey) told me to do what I'm good at and he lets me play my own game. I'm just happy to get out on the pitch and I'm happy to wait for my chances."

Harvey was pleased with Stonehouse and satisfied with his side's endeavour and felt the excellent Chris Giles, who came in for the unlucky Mark Preece, performed admirably.

Harvey said: "I told Paul that I'd be looking to get him on early and he ended up with a goal, which we're all happy about.

"We defended a little bit better and I thought Chris Giles did really well alongside Darren Jones.

"I thought we did well first half, then they came back. From then on it was more gutsy than free-flowing football, but we defended better than we have been doing when we've got our-selves into the lead."

Earlier, Forest Green began brightly enough. Matt Robinson failed to get any purchase on Simon Clist's accurate free-kick and then a Les Afful corner saw John Mcarthy clear Alex Meechan's faint touch off the line.

Northwich responded and really should have opened the scoring. Alex Lawless allowed impressive German under-19 international Felix Bastians the chance to cross. Michael Carr failed to get a touch but as the ball broke Louis Dodds headed fractionally over.

However, Rovers nosed ahead on 32 minutes. Afful's corner saw the outstanding Michael Brough burst through a crowd of defenders to nod home.

Northwich looked more threatening after the break. Bastians, on loan from Nottingham Forest, was becoming increasingly dangerous and he drew parity in spectacular fashion.

Cutting in from the left he angled an unstoppable drive from the edge of the box and into Steve Williams' bottom corner.

Harvey had seen enough and sent on Stonehouse and Allan Russell. The move worked immediately.

Robinson found Russell who picked out the surging Stonehouse who made ground down the left, his pass saw Russell look to shoot but somewhat fortuitously his shot broke to the alert Stonehouse who angled a shot past Phil Senior from inside the box.

Steve Burr's side responded and Williams was forced into a decent block from Stuart Elliott. Rovers were incensed moments later as a stonewall penalty was turned down. Russell fed Meechan who was chopped down by McCarthy.

The penalty claim could have proved crucial when Michael Byrne came close to parity but was denied by the safe handling of Williams.