AFTER a limp first derby at the Beacon over Christmas, Monday's 1-1 draw between St Francis Rangers and Hassocks was much more like it should be and in the end it was a fair result.
On a day not for the faint-hearted - either watching or playing - fortunes fluctuated but both managers were happy enough with a point in the end.
But in saying that, Danny Bryan felt his home side had more of the ball, while opposite number Dave Jo
hn pointed to a second half penalty miss.
Bryan is now close to his target for survival and in an excellent first season in the County League top flight, he now has far more options than he had back in August.
John gives up team management at the end of the season but after looking like his players had taken that early announcement as a cue to end their campaign, they have managed to pick up some useful points in the face of several notable absentees.
"We've done really well recently considering how many key players we've had missing," he said. "Even today we were without Simon Bristow and Chris Brown."
Despite Bryan's pre-match reminders, Rangers began liked rabbits startled in car headlights and their defence was like a barn door.
Laurence Robinson almost made them pay just two minutes in when they were undone Route 1 style and only 90 seconds later the visitors were in front when the marking from a corner was non-existent as Matt Robbins headed in Phil Gault's delivery.
Another corner from the other side was missed by Simon Lehkyj and the home keeper was relieved to see Peter Lear's shot blocked after Michael Bates turned the ball back into the middle.
It could not carry on like that and Luke Leppard gave Rangers hope with a great cross that Joel Harding did well to push out from under the bar.
But before the hosts equalised on 27 minutes, Robinson completely missed his volley when well placed for Hassocks.
The Rangers goal also came from a corner that owed much to the excellent work of Elliott Butler on the right. Mickey Turner did well to avert the danger but Hassocks failed to deal with the resulting corner and finally the blossoming Sam Palmer scored with a superbly executed overhead kick.
If the second half lacked quite the quality of the first, it more than made amends with some real derby bite at long last.
On the hour Spencer Slaughter had his penalty well saved by Lehkyj to preserve a point for the hosts to offset their somewhat unlucky 2-0 defeat on Boxing Day.
Full report in this week's Mid Sussex Times.
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