Ian Culverhouse was a happy man as King’s Lynn Town moved into the top half of the National League table thanks to a 2-0 home win over Dover Athletic.

A first-half header by Rory McAuley and a penalty near the end by Adam Marriott made it consecutive wins and, importantly, clean sheets for the Linnets, who are now 12th in the table.

While Lynn worked well on the counter-attack in the midweek win at Barnet, it was a case of role reversal as the visitors mounted a rearguard action.

“Very good,” said Culverhouse. “I thought our shape was good, they obviously came with a game plan to hit us on the counter and created a couple of good opportunities but I thought we marshalled them quite well.

“We did it at Barnet so we had to be patient in possession and work our openings and I thought we were good on the ball today.”

McAuley put in another big shift after his midweek efforts at Barnet, and opened the scoring on 43 minutes, heading home Michael Clunan’s perfect corner.

“Good set-play which is pleasing because we don’t score many from set-plays and he attacked it really well,” said Culverhouse.

Lynn dominated the first half, but faced a wall of red shirts.

Sonny Carey was teed up by Kairo Mitchell but his left-foot shot didn’t have enough sting in it and the keeper saved with ease.

Mitchell then did well to turn on the area but his rising shot was too high.

Lynn should have gone ahead when new signing Kyle Callan-McFadden’s deliberate defensive header forward found Ross Barrows, who played it inside to Sam Kelly who returned the favour. Barrows got into the area, pulled it back for the on-rushing Alex Brown but the defender sidefooted it over from 10 yards.

The breakthrough came before half-time and then Marriott wrapped it up from 12 yards after Mitchell had been upended, a foul which resulted in a red card for Ryan Hanson, who was joined after the final whistle blew when manager Andy Hessenthaler was shown a red for dissent.

Culverhouse made two changes to his starting line-up, with Callan-McFadden given his debut ahead of on-loan Danny Lupano, and Sonny Carey coming in for Ryan Jarvis.

Lupano has been on a month’s loan from Hull City but Culverhouse said that would not now be extended.

The Lynn boss also said that striker Michael Gash, who has not played this season since a summer illness, would be on the bench for next Saturday’s big FA Cup second round tie at Portsmouth.