Barnoldswick Town 1 Maine Road 1

SUBSTITUTE Zack Dale struck late as Barnoldswick Town salvaged a Premier Division point from a game in which they had enough chances to win comfortably.

Dale netted with a cracking 25-yard drive in the 78th minute to cancel out an equally spectacular opener from Connor Hughes.

The Maine Road player fired a free kick into the top corner of Jordan Gidley's net from a similar range after 32 minutes.

The big frustration for Town was their inability to make the most of some neat approach play from the midfield where the impressive Andrew Hill pulled the strings. Chances were created and squandered throughout the 90 minutes.

With tough away games coming up away to leaders Runcorn Town on Saturday and Runcorn Linnets a week later, Town know they must sharpen up on their finishing.

Manager Stewart Airdrie said: "Our overall performance was good. We played some good football and we have enough chances to win comfortably, but we didn't take them.

"It is something we need to work on because even in the 4-0 win at Ashton Athletic on New Year's Eve, we should have scored more goals."

He added: "We know we can do better than we are doing. We need to climb the table and that won't be easy as we have tough games coming up.

"However, we have managed to field an unchanged side for the past two games and we still have players like Arley Barnes, Joe Gaughan, Jake McEneaney, Liam Britton and Kieran Britton to come back into contention shortly.

"We know we face a testing period and it is good to have more players back in the frame."