ON a night when the heavens opened to hand the Hurn Bridge faithful a wet and horrible evening, Christchurch's recent goalscoring form dried up.

With 12 goals in their past three matches, it had been raining goals for Graham Kemp's side.

But, during an uninspired first half display, the hosts rarely troubled Alton Town.

In awful conditions, play of any real quality was always going to be difficult and both defences found themselves on top as neither team threatened in the opening exchanges.

That was until the visitors took the lead in the 34th minute with a thunderous strike from central defender Steve Brown.

His rocket from 35 yards was a moment of quality not in keeping with the rest of the match and quite why someone capable of producing a shot like that is playing at centre-half is a question that will surely be asked of the Alton management.

Worse was to come for the hosts when Alton doubled their lead two minutes before the break.

Priory keeper Dan Loader, who had earlier produced a smart save to keep the teams level, was left out of position after clearing danger on the edge of his box and Barry Parker was on hand to thump into an empty net from 20 yards.

Priory were handed a lifeline when skipper Lloyd Jenvey headed in a corner 12 minutes into the second half.

But, despite Alton's Dan Vincent being sent off in the 67th minute, Christchurch failed to test the visitors' rather unconvincing goalkeeper with enough shots, much to the annoyance of boss Kemp.

"For once I've got to say our attacking options were left wanting," Kemp told the Daily Echo.

"We snatched at a few and didn't really work the goalkeeper. He didn't have to make many saves and we need to work on that in training.

"We didn't click tonight but it's hard to be harsh as we've scored 12 in the last three games."

Christchurch: Loader, Costello, Atkins (Collins 86), Crutchley, Coleman, Jenvey, Drew (Mawer 79), Rideout, Woolner, Burrows, Manning (Midgeley 68).