Point Taken

TIVERTON could not quite overcome the fates that conspired to attempt to defeat them at Didcot on Saturday.

The Yellows lost key player Joe O'Connor to injury midway through the first half and were reduced to ten men soon afterwards when captain Jamie Richards was sent off.

Despite that, they refused to buckle and, with game goal-less heading into the final minute of time added on at Loop Meadow, had the chance to claim all three points when they won a penalty.

Substitute River Allen's spot-kick was well struck, but Didcot goalkeeper Leigh Bedwell brought his years of experience to bear and made an excellent stop to deny the Yellows what would have been a superb victory.

Tivvy manager Leigh Robinson said: "It was such a strange game and almost a case of ‘what could go wrong, did go wrong’.

"We lost Joe early with injury. Then the pretty dubious red card for Jamie changed the complexion of the game a bit.

"To be fair to the players, down to 10 men after 25 minutes and away from home, it’s easy for it to go wrong and turn into a bad day, but they kept plugging away and, if anyone was going to win the game, it was us.

"Of course, we wanted three points before the game but, in the circumstances, a point isn’t the end of the world.

"When you miss a penalty with the last kick of the game, you have to be gutted not to win, but the application and how comfortable we were when down to ten men means we can take plenty of positives from the day still."