Brighouse Town v Stamford: Late goals salvage point

Vill Powell’s men, who have now taken only four points from the last 12 on offer, trailed 2-0 and 3-1 and needed two late goals to reel in their mid-table visitors from Lincolnshire.

They were overtaken by Pontefract Collieries, who were 3-0 home winners against Loughborough Dynamo, and Powell admitted that after the game had panned out he was relieved to pick up a point.

The manager said Brighouse had been guilty of sloppy passing and poor play for some of the goals they had conceded but he retained his faith in the squad.

“I am happy with the group. I believe in the players that have got us so far,” he said.

The home side started well enough but fell behind to goals either side of half-time from Ollie Brown-Hill, the second of them a penalty conceded by stand-in keeper Matt Smith.

Top scorer Aaron Martin reduced the deficit on 57 minutes with a superb header after fine work from Jack Normanton and Rhys Jenkinson but Teddy Bloor restored Stamford’s two-goal lead on 69 minutes.

Brighouse were thrown a lifeline when Adam Jones, who had replaced Tim Haigh at half-time, was pushed over and Martin scored the penalty with five minutes left.

The equaliser came three minutes into added time when Zeph Thomas, quiet up to then, produced some good play down the left and his fierce shot took a deflection which lifted the ball over the visiting keeper.

There was drama when Iwan Heeley tried to get the ball out of the net for a quick restart and appeared to be kicked over by the visiting keeper, who escaped with a yellow card.

Powell will hope his men can get back to winning ways at Lincoln United next Saturday. United are 13th and lost 4-0 at home to Morpeth, who are now 11 points clear at the top, yesterday.