A STORMING run of five straight league wins has catapulted AFC Totton to within two points of the Southern One South & West play-off zone.

But although the Stags would be interested in taking promotion this season should the opportunity arise, cautious manager Steve Riley knows there are some tough games lying in wait for his maturing, young side.

While Saturday’s 3-1 home win over struggling Wantage Town was a somewhat scrappy affair, Totton were never in any danger of blotting their 2015 copybook as they made it 15 points banked and 18 goals scored since the turn of the year.

But with a trip to seventh-placed Larkhall Athletic awaiting them this Saturday and February tests against top-half sides Didcot, Shortwood, Taunton and Evesham to come, Riley remains wary of potential pitfalls in the weeks ahead.

“We started the season really well and then petered out a bit,” he said.

“But we gained a bit of know-how over Christmas and to start the new year with five wins out of five is fantastic.

“Next month is going to be really difficult though and we’ve got (third-placed) Stratford and (leaders) Merthyr in March, so I don’t think we should get carried away just yet.

“We’ll see at the end of February where we are as a club and what we can achieve. We’ve won our last five matches and it’s all about the next five now.

“We’ll stay grounded and concentrate on getting better as a group.

“Football’s full of ups and downs and we’ve certainly had our downs as a club.

“Now we’re on a winning streak, we’ve just got to enjoy it and take things game by game.”

Totton were brimming with confidence from the off on Saturday and, but for a superb double save by Wantage keeper Gareth Tucker to deny Nathaniel Sherborne, they could have been ahead inside two minutes.

The visitors had a couple of penalty appeals turned down as the Stags’ initial spark faded and, when it came, Totton’s 36th-minute opener was comical to say the least.

Full-back Jamie Blackburn unleashed a shot from wide left which had no real potency behind it. But in trying – and failing miserably – to clear the ball, Wantage’s Adam Lovegrove succeeded only in unsighting his own goalkeeper Tucker who watched it trickle past him into the net.

Tucker’s failure to tame Sherborne’s strike allowed Craig Feeney to nip in and double Totton’s advantage shortly before the break.

And just three second-half minutes had elapsed when referee Ben Cobb made what Wantage manager Daniel Barry described as a “shocking decision” to award the Stags a penalty for handball against Dan Warne.

Hot-shot Feeney duly obliged with a neatly-taken penalty to make it 3-0 to Totton and boost his season’s tally to 18. A stop-start second-half unfolded and, although Wantage mustered two or three chances on target, it rarely looked as if Stags ’keeper Steve Mowthorpe would be denied a third straight clean sheet.

Totton came within inches of a fourth when wing wizard Mike Gosney – secured on a second month’s loan from Gosport Borough – cracked a free-kick against the post from 30 yards.

But, in the depths of stoppage time, visiting sub Sam Barder’s cross-shot took a deflection, Mowthorpe missed his punch under pressure from Lovegrove and, amid an eerie silence around the Testwood Stadium, the ball somehow found the top corner of the net.

“It was a strange game,” admitted Riley. “We started really well and had about six good chances early on but just couldn’t get the ball over the line. Then we got a bit lack-lustre and it became stop-start with no real flow to the game.

“The performance was not the best for the neutral, but it was all about the victory. With five wins from five, we couldn’t have asked for a better start to 2015.

“It was nice to see Craig Feeney get a brace. He’s a livewire for us and he’s notching goals. Long may it continue.”