Eastleigh produced a performance that was full of guts and not short of class to take a valuable three points from their long-haul trip to Gateshead Crucially, on a day when the sides around them also won, the 3-2 win keeps them in touch with the Conference Premier play-off spots.

After James Constable’s breakthrough strike had been cancelled out by Michael Rankine before half-time, Craig McAllister and Constable again, delivered the goals that proved enough for victory, despite Jon Shaw’s late consolation for the hosts, writes Paul McNamara.

All Richard Hill’s team had to show for their offensive efforts during a scrappy opening to this encounter was Harry Pell’s optimistic strike from range that was comfortably held by Joel Dixon. Dixon’s ’keeping counterpart Ross Flitney, meanwhile had been called upon in the initial stages to race from his area and clear from in front of the chasing Michael Rankine.

The Gateshead attacker served noticed of his threat nine minutes in, gathering Matty Pattison’s pass 18 yards from goal to turn and send a shot skipping just wide of Flitney’s right-hand post. In the very next phase of play, Constable responded in kind, charging onto his goalkeeper’s kick forward and bundling his way free of James Curtis before hitting a rising strike from the edge of the area wide of the left post.

The Spitfires enjoyed a flurry of pressure on the hosts’ goal around the quarter hour mark. Jack Midson won a corner on the right, which Brian Howard sent to the back post for Pell to head on target, only for Dixon to tip over. Howard’s subsequent flag-kick delivery was nodded wide of the near-post by Constable. Howard was in the thick of it, taking on free-kick duties minutes later. With the wind picking up – and keeping the ball in place to be struck proving a task in itself – the former Barnsley player clipped his 25-yard effort too high to trouble Dixon.

When Eastleigh chiselled out a lead on 26 minutes it came as the result of a beautiful counter. Midson, diligent in his defensive work all afternoon, cleared from deep on the right. Constable chested the ball into the path of McAllister, who shuffled play left for Howard. The midfielder drifted inside, leaving his ‘Heed’ pursuers in his wake, before delivering a terrific slide-rule pass for Constable, now darting into the left side of the box and finishing with a clinical strike across Dixon.

There was a let-off for the visitors on half-an-hour when Rankine’s rasping shot from eight-yards out, after the former York City player had latched onto Valentin Gjokaj’s header back across goal and into his path, cannoned back out off the bar.

Two minutes later, though, Rankine found his range. Right-back Craig Baxter lifted in a cross from deep, which found the marksman in space in the box and glancing cutely across Flitney and into the far corner of goal.

Just sixty seconds later, the home team were agonisingly close to turning the match on its head. Will Evans was cautioned for cutting Rob Ramshaw to the turf, enabling Alex Rodman to swing a free-kick in from the left. ‘Heed’ skipper Jon Shaw rose to meet the delivery, planting his header against the bar. Gjokaj drew a fantastic one-handed reaction stop from Flitney when he nodded the follow-up goalbound. Still the danger wasn’t over. Albanian under-21 international Gjokaj was smartly onto the loose ball, scrambling an effort at goal that hit the foot of the left upright.

The teams swapped chances as the half drew to a close; Beckwith alert to prevent Carl Finnigan from meeting Rodman’s right wing cross and then Dixon swiftly from his line to gather Howard’s prodded pass aimed for Constable.

The interval drew some of the sting from the end-to-end nature of the contest, but when the first sight of goal arrived it came for the away team. Constable spread play right for McAllister, before continuing a driving run at the heart of the area to connect with his strike partner’s cross and send a header inches past the near post.

Gateshead were restricted to Pattison’s shot blocked by Jamie Turley and an opportunistic Rodman dig that was always curling away from Flitney’s right-hand post and wide, as the Spitfires started to assume a measure of control over proceedings.

Howard roamed intelligently infield to engineer the visitors’ next opportunity, receiving Pell’s forward pass to pick out McAllister who turned to send in a shot that Dixon gloved around his right post.

Beckwith’s sound positioning was then called on again, when the Eastleigh defender manager to lift Pattison’s menacing delivery from the left over his own bar. That escape was the prompt for Eastleigh to go on the offensive. Rankine performed heroics back in his own box to direct Constable’s front-post header from a Howard corner off the line and over the bar. It was a patient build-up, with sixteen minutes to play, that ended with the Spitfires forging ahead. Howard forced a pass down the right where the overlapping Pell was on hand to send in a cross that Constable met with a diving header. Dixon kept that effort out, but was powerless to prevent McAllister, yards from the line, from knocking the rebound home.

Home boss Gary Mills responded to his charges falling behind by making a double change and switching to a three-man rearguard. The switch in tactics didn’t have the desired effect, however. Within minutes Midson was releasing Constable into a right channel to unleash a shot that Dixon tumbled to his right to parry out. Nevertheless, the same combination of visiting attackers would find joy on 83 minutes to extend the away team’s lead. Constable, on this occasion, took Midson’s pass into his feet and flashed an unerring strike past the helpless Dixon’s outstretched right glove and low into the corner of goal.

The Eastleigh forward would have had a hat-trick if another drilled strike, after he had benefitted from another slick Midson pass, hadn’t flashed back off the bar, once more.

Any suspicion that Hill’s men would coast home were dispelled by Shaw’s 90th minute header from Pattison’s right sided corner that squirmed through Flithey and over the line.

It set up a grandstand finish, with Rankine now operating at the tip of a three man Gateshead attack.

For all their huff and puff, though, the home team couldn’t break down a resilient Eastleigh, who will make the return journey south with a precious three points added to their burgeoning tally.