Whitehaven grabbed a point against newly promoted Haslingden St Mary’s in a 1-1 draw to take them up to eighth in the West Lancashire League.
A decent crowd at the County Ground watched a really entertaining game of end-to-end football.
Once again the home team started brightly, but missed three gilt-edged chances in the opening 15 minutes.
Taylor Hambling was through on goal but his shot was tame and easily blocked, and then the lively Robbie Swinburn twice beat the defence only for the keeper to make a good save from the first chance and then he saw his second effort come back off the post.
St Mary’s really grew into the game and started to cause Haven all sorts of problems and it resulted in Alfie Edmondson converting a chance on 22 minutes.
Haven really had to hang on for the rest of the half, which resulted in manager Jon-Karl Benson changing formation in order to try and neutralise their counter-attacking threat.
Positive, firm words at half-time had the desired effect with the correct response.
An energetic run from wing back Aidan Smith resulted in a fantastic finish from Travis Fyfe to level the scores on 66 minutes.
Both teams had their chances to win the game but there were no more goals and a draw was probably a fair result.
After the game Benson said: “Although we lost our first game Haslingden were our toughest opponents to date.
“I’d expect them to pick up plenty of points going forward.”
Haven are at home again on Saturday against Hurst Green and will look to continue their unbeaten home record.
