Dandy Town Hornets’ push for an eighth title had a slight stutter yesterday when they were forced to share the points with second-from-bottom Southampton Rangers in a 1-1 draw at St John’s Field.

With their only other title rival Robin Hood suffering a 2-0 defeat at home to Devonshire Colts on Saturday night, the opportunity was there for Town to reopen a nine-point cushion at the top of the Premier Division, only to be denied by Akale Bean’s late equaliser.

With a seven-point gap and only four matches remaining, Town, who won their first league title in 1987-88, can still seal this one with a couple of games to spare.

Town are on 32 points while the most Hood can finish with is 37. Hood have to win their last four games against Devonshire Cougars, Boulevard, Somerset Trojans and North Village.

Hornets’ next two matches are against Boulevard and Trojans, the defending champions, who are scheduled to meet Devonshire Cougars at home tonight.

“We’ll go back to the drawing board, we’re not going to give up, we believe this title is there for us to win,” Jomar Wilkinson, the Town coach, said.

“We have to stay humble and if it means one point at a time then we’ll do it one point at a time.

“But we are going to do it, we’ll reap the reward that we so much deserve.”

Town drew 3-3 with Rangers in their first league meeting, with their opponents now the only team not to lose to Wilkinson’s side in the league this season.

“My boys are kind of hurt, this [draw] feels like a loss but we got a point which puts us seven points clear of the second-place team,” said Wilkinson, who insisted that Hood’s loss the previous night did not cause complacency in his team.

“It was a lack of concentration, we lost our focus for a split second and they capitalised,” he said. “Four games left and seven points ahead, I still like the position we’re in.

“My hat goes off to Rangers, they understood they needed to battle and that it wasn’t going to be pretty.

“They did a decent job but I still stress that we had enough chances to win the game.”

Boulevard’s second-half revival continued with a 2-1 win over North Village at Police Field, a result that lifted them ahead of coach Richard Todd’s team and into third place.

With only three points separating them from Hood, second place is very much within Boulevard’s reach.

“I thought we deserved to win,” said Keemo Smith, the Boulevard player-coach. “I thought the defence played very well as there were a few sticky moments.

“All the credit to the defenders because they stood firm when we needed them to.”

At PHC Field, relegation-threatened Hamilton Parish mounted a spirited second-half comeback to offset a two-goal deficit and earn a share of the spoils with home side PHC Zebras.

Zebras led 2-0 at the half through goals from Casey Castle and Cecoy Robinson, the PHC captain.

But Parish hit back with two unanswered goals after the break from Donovan Thompson and Anthony Smith to earn a precious point.

Phillip Burgess, the Parish coach, praised his players for “showing a lot of fight” when all seemed lost at one stage.

“They put the fight in and showed a lot of character,” he said.

“The guys worked hard as a team, which is the most important thing that I stress.

“During the half I told the players to stay composed, work together as a team and we made some changes to bring some creativity up front. That’s how we got the two goals.”