By Brian Bennett | Photo: Ian Brodie

Ashington manager Nick Gray thought the result was right on Bank Holiday Monday when his outfit drew 1-1 against Blyth Spartans at Croft Park.

After Patrick McClafferty had put Spartans ahead on the hour, Ashington levelled with a goal from substitute Sam Davison in the eighth minute of stoppage time.

Gray said afterwards: “Emotions have been all over the place this weekend and it hasn’t been pretty because there have been some difficult times.

Blyth started the game the better side whilst we looked a little bit leggy but we grew into the second part of the first half.”

However, Gray believed his outfit had the edge after the break: “I said in the dressing room at the interval, that we just needed to raise our game everywhere with the passing, the movement and not giving as much respect to the opposition as we had been doing and second half I thought we were the better side. We gave them a goal but Harry Powell is a young lad and he’s done smashing since he came to us. He’s held his hand up in the dressing room which is fair play to him – but you’ve got to learn quickly. We kept on going and they (Blyth) sat back a little bit then there was time added on and I thought we got our just rewards in the end with the equaliser. After that, we went for a winner with Michael Annang-Colquhoun having a header saved then they’ve had a chance, so for me, over the whole game a draw was a fair result.”

He continued: “We got stronger before we equalised – but we don’t help ourselves. I keep on talking about having belief and that we’ve got to put balls into good areas. The ball which led to our goal was put into a good area and Sam Davison has scored. The Blyth ‘keeper hasn’t had a lot to do but we’ll take the positives out of the game and work on things which we need to work on.”