15 February 2010
SUPERB SECOND HALF DISPLAY EARNS AWAY POINT
By Tom O'Brien

A LAST-GASP Kallum Smith strike stretched Lincoln United’s unbeaten run to five, as they drew 2-2 away to an in-form Chasetown on Saturday.

The White’s fell behind in the 22nd minute, when Danny Smith’s long range effort was deflected towards goal by offside Duncan Horler, but neither the referee or the linesman spotted the infringement.
The Scholar’s doubled their lead in the 36th minute through Horler again.
But Lincoln fought back, and a gift from Chasetown keeper Ryan Price, put United on level terms. Price, under pressure from in-form Ben Garrick, Price was only able to kick the ball against Garrick as it flew into the net.
Chasetown were reduced to ten men on 70 minutes, when Vaughan Thomas was given a second yellow for a tackle on Sam Wilkinson, and the comeback was complete when Garrick found Smith free in the middle of the area to slam home the equaliser.

“It’s good to get a point, especially with the first half performance which wasn’t the best.” Began Skipper Brendan McDaid.
“We just weren’t at the races, but in the end I think we definitely deserved a point, maybe a bit more.
“They came at us in the first half, and we just didn’t get anywhere near them, but with that, they didn’t really create that many chances.
“We were our on demons, especially with the two goals we conceded.
“But second half we came out and played some football on probably not the best surface. We created six or seven really good chances but only converted two.”

After a slow start from the White’s, Chasetown had chances to take the lead, ex-Lincoln City striker Gary Birch denied by Mario Ziccardi in the White’s goal.
Chasetown took the lead after 22 minutes, Smith free in the middle of the park hit a speculative effort which appeared to be going wide until it hit team-mate Horler and deflected past Ziccardi.
The difference was two goals nine minutes before half time, Horler getting his head to a whipped corner.
But a determined Lincoln had their eyes set on a deserved point, and put Chasetown on the back foot for the remainder of the game.
Chasetown played most of the second half in their own half of the pitch, but Garrick couldn’t believe his luck when he closed down Scholar’s keeper Price, who smashed the ball against the White’s Striker and watched it roll into the back of his net.

“Ben’s had another huge performance today; he’s had a massive impact.” McDaid continued.
“He makes the back four have to work really hard all game, he doesn’t give them a minutes rest and to be fair, most teams in this league do have forwards like that.
“For me, he’s been one of the big differences and taken over from Sean Cann with his injury.
“Over the last four or five games, team performances have been very good, with a good work rate and players have done really well.

McDaid also thought the sending off was a right decision by referee M. Bingham.
“They’ll talk about Sam Wilkinson in the first half with a similar challenge but I think in the end, Sam wound him up enough and he was walking before the card was shown.”
The comeback was complete five minutes into time added on at the end of the game, when Garrick’s low cross found Smith free in front of an open goal to ensure a share of the spoils.
“We know we’ve been playing good football but not taking the chances early on in the season.
“We had a good cup run but now we’ll aim to finish as high as we can, and with the younger lads, we’ll hopefully try and build for the years to come.” Concluded McDaid.

WHITES: Ziccardi, Fleming, Porter, McDaid, Wilkins, George, Garrick, Melton, Wilkinson, O’Halloran, Smith. Subs: Bull, Funnell, Hawley, Machin, Zuerner.