Dandy Town Hornets 0

PHC Zebras 0

PHC skipper Chris Furbert praised his side after they put in a workman-like performance against Dandy Town at St. John's Field yesterday to come away with a valuable point after the two sides battled to a goalless draw.

The defending champions, who are in the midst of a fight for their top flight status, battled their hosts with the intention of getting out of the bottom three and finding some sort of form heading into the final stretch of the league campaign.

"We played well today as a team, we were the better side but need to put away our chances," said Furbert.

"Town is that type of team to capitalise on their opponents mishaps, as happened in the first match we played against them, but down the stretch of games we need to stay tight and focus as a unit.

"We are still the defending champions, so everyone still wants to beat us and send us down, but in the end it is one game at a time."

PHC started brightly with Dennis Russell and Steven Astwood up front proving a handful with their height and strength and Russell almost put them in front after ten minutes after a neat build up, only for Hornets shot stopper Mikkail Crockwell to pull off a fine boot save.

Defender Kevin Richards appeared to have scored the opener in the 23rd minute, but referee George O'Brien blew for a foul on Crockwell as he was stretching to get his fingertips on the ball.

A bad sign for Town fans was the injury to Antwan Russell, who had to be substituted at halftime for an apparent knee injury, with winger Damon Ming already on the sidelines with a broken bone in his foot suffered in last week's match.

Town had a gilt-edge chance of their own late in the second half when PHC was caught up field taking a free kick deep in Hornets' territory.

A quick long ball found Raymond Beach, who up until this point in the match was quiet, and he slid his effort just inches wide of Jay Smith's far post.

Zebras substitute Casey Castle also had golden opportunity to steal all three points, when he was left unmarked at the back post.

However, another of Crockwell's many fine saves throughout the match kept the scores level at the death.

The result leaves Zebras one point clear of seventh place Southampton Rangers, while Town are now chasing Devonshire Cougars, who have now gone one point clear at the top of the league table.

"We have put ourselves in the position we are in because we don't put our chances away, we haven't had a real goal scorer this season as well as our goalkeeping not being the best," continued Furbert.

"As long as we can stay organised down the back, we will have success at keeping clean sheets and get points.

"But as a team, we haven't found that ruthlessness that we had last season. The training habits are still the same, but we need to get that edge back.

"We just need to take one game at a time. We need to believe in our coach and our system, and come out and work hard."

Dandy Town M.Crockwell, D.Signor, E.Signor, S.Smith, K.Latham, A.Russell(K.Goddar4 ), G.Butterfield (N.Wells 34), L.Dill (D.Leverock 76), J.Lambe, H.Wolffe, R.Beach

PHC J.Smith, F.Frankson, K.Richards, O.Shakir, C.Dowling, B.Bean, C.Furbert, K.Lambe(J.Franklin 65), K.Lewis, S.Astwood (C.Castle 65), D.Russell

Referee: G. O'Brien Sr.

Cards: N. Wells, D. Leverock (D.Town), C. Furbert(PHC)

Man of the Match: M.Crockwell