By Brian Bennett

Assistant manager Liam McIvor poured praise on a depleted Ashington squad on Saturday and described their 2-2 draw against promotion hopefuls Belper Town as being ‘a big point.’

McIvor said: “We obviously wanted to win the game but on reflection, a draw was probably a fair result. It’s a big point for us – especially after being 2-0 down – considering a lot of the teams around us won so credit to the lads for getting back into the game today.”

Looking back at a jam packed first period, McIvor added: “For us to concede a second goal a minute after the first was terrible. Funnily enough even though we were 2-0 down, it’s probably the best I’ve seen us play. We got back into the contest with a good goal, had another effort cleared off the line, missed a penalty and then scored a brilliant goal to equalise.”

He continued: “At half time we asked the players to try and continue to take the game to them (Belper) because we thought they were vulnerable at the back. We knew that needed to tighten things up ourselves because they had a couple of good chances in the first half and what developed was a bit of a scrappy second half.”

He went on: “We knew that with unavailabilities and injuries our squad would be depleted but the lads dug in and earned a great point.”