Oxford boss Des Buckingham hailed his side’s late 2-1 victory over struggling Cheltenham as a “much-needed win” for his play-off-chasing side.

Greg Leigh headed the winner in the 87th minute from a fine cross by Owen Dale.

Josh Murphy had fired the hosts in front in first-half stoppage time, but the Robins equalised in the 80th minute through Will Ferry.

Buckingham said: “We’ve come away with a much-needed win, points on the board at an important time of the year.

“It took us until the 87th minute to get there, but we got there in the end.

“Cheltenham are a very difficult team to play against. They play with five at the back and have got four in midfield – sometimes you have to be patient and do things a lot quicker.

“I thought the last 10 or 15 minutes of the first half we came good, got the goal and lost a bit of control of the game but regained it and got what I thought was a deserved winner.

“I wouldn’t like to play against Owen (Dale). He works tirelessly the whole game. He’s one of the few players I have seen in this league who is able to dribble at pace. He’ll invariably get past you and today he put two or three decent balls into the box.

“And Greg arrived on the back of another cross and scored the second time. He should probably have scored with the first one just before, though that was a very good save.

“Owen was very good, but when you’ve got Josh Murphy on the other side too it just mixes things up.

“We’ve been trying to get Greg Leigh into more advanced areas. He did it a little bit more second half, which was good to see.”

Cheltenham manager Darrell Clarke was unhappy with the mentality of his players as they conceded goals at the end of each half to slip even deeper into relegation trouble.

Clarke said: “I’m not happy. We should never concede a goal like that just before half-time.

“Then we score an equaliser, are on the front foot and then it’s a mentality thing for me. It wasn’t just the goal, for five or six minutes before that people were slashing at things, no composure, not making right decisions.

“I’m not happy on crucial moments in games and I’m expecting more from our players.

“For me it was a mindset and mentality issue that we sat back after scoring and then you get punished. It was inexcusable.

“Our game plan was working quite well first half, we’d limited them to very few chances, only a couple of long-range shots and then we concede a poor goal.

“We made a few changes, stayed in the game, got the ball down and played in the right areas and got the equaliser.

“Then, for whatever reason, the mentality of the team that was out there to finish the game was nowhere near good enough.

“Players that come into the team need to take those opportunities or else they’ll never play at those levels again.

“Players have to learn quickly because otherwise they just fall by the wayside.”

Lord Massusus notched the biggest success of his career when scorching to victory in the Bahrain Turf Club Desmond Stakes at Leopardstown.

Joseph Murphy’s three-year-old had looked a progressive operator earlier in the year, but had failed to make his mark in two recent outings in Pattern company.

Sent off 11-2 when returned to a mile for this Group Three event, rider Gary Carroll was in no rush aboard the gelded son of Markaz.

In fact it looked as if the race was 11-4 favourite Alfred Munnings’s to lose when Ryan Moore hit the front in the home straight, but Lord Massusus was making stealthy progress and quickly inching his way into contention.

Carroll asked his mount for maximum effort approaching the final furlong and he had a willing partner as they hunted down Alfred Munnings with the post looming to register a one-and-a-half-length success.

“We were disappointed the last day but things didn’t go right for him, he pulled too hard,” said Murphy.

“We got him switched off today, he came home well and a fast pace suited him. He won like a good horse, I thought it was a good performance.

“That’s what he was showing us when we supplemented him for the Minstrel Stakes.

“That’s his fifth win now. There is a little bit of ease in the ground today, the day he ran in the Listed race and was running on well (fourth in the Celebration Stakes) it was good, so he’s versatile.

“He has a low action so good ground makes no difference.”

On future plans, Murphy said: “We’ll look forward to the big meeting now, he’ll go for the Dullingham Park Stakes on Irish Champions Weekend.”

There may have been no joy for Aidan O’Brien in the feature, but the Ballydoyle handler saw Chief Little Rock go one better than his debut course and distance second to get off the mark in the Irish Stallion Farms EBF (C & G) Maiden.

The son of Galileo needed every yard of the one-mile contest to assert his dominance, but the odds-on scorer appears a colt heading in the right direction and could have booked his ticket to bigger and better things.

“Ryan said he was very babyish still, that he came out and he didn’t really know what to do even after having a run,” said O’Brien.

“He said he always felt that he was going to win, but that he was very green with him and he said he felt like a horse that was going to improve a lot, so we won’t rush him.

“The first day he ran around and was green so we rode him up there today and he probably found all that new too.

“It was satisfactory, but he needs to come on and he thinks he will.”

He added: “We could look at something like the Beresford, but we won’t have to rush him and he’ll stay at a mile. He’ll handle an ease in the ground too, and he’s a middle-distance horse for next year.”

Also opening his account was Joseph O’Brien’s Up And Under, who put his experience to good use in the Irish Stallion Farms EBF Maiden.

Twice runner-up in Derby trials at the Dublin track before heading to the Curragh for the Irish Derby itself, the Lope De Vega colt took real advantage of this drop in class to get on the scoresheet as the 4-9 favourite.