SWINDON Supermarine manager Lee Spalding was left feeling thankful his team were able to escape with a Southern League Premier Division South point after they conceded late in a 1-1 draw at home to Poole Town on Saturday.

Connor McDonagh scored his 23rd goal of the season to give Marine an early lead following an unselfish cross from Stuart Fleetwood, but Poole dominated the majority of proceedings and deservedly equalised late on through Jake Scrimshaw.

A defensive lapse in communication between Matt Williams and on-loan goalkeeper Will Henry allowed Scrimshaw to nip in and poke home as Poole left the Webbswood Stadium disappointed at only claiming a point.

Spalding, on the other hand, called the draw a “positive point” as Marine responded from their last home disappointment by avoiding defeat this time out.

Spalding said: “I think it’s a positive point, but we can definitely play better.

“In the first half, I thought we did quite well overall. On the counter-attack, we looked dangerous, but in the second half, I felt we dropped off a little too deep, we didn’t keep possession of the ball well enough.

“I’m a little bit disappointed we didn’t manage to see the game out, but you always felt like that goal was coming due to the amount of pressure they put on us in the second half.”

Supermarine appeared competitive in the first period and went toe-to-toe with a team they had comfortably seen off in Dorset three weeks before.

While looking to hold on to the win, Spalding said he informed his side on the importance of keeping another clean sheet, but felt his players maybe took the advice too literally as they spent 45 minutes camped in their own half.

Spalding said: “I told the lads at half-time that it was important that we keep a clean sheet and maybe they’ve taken that a bit too literally because we dropped off quite a bit.

“It was difficult for the lads at the back to get out and we didn’t really have the quality on the ball in the second half where we could get ourselves up the pitch and create something ourselves.

“We didn’t gain any meaningful possession of the ball in the second half and I don’t think I can look too much at the back four because every time the ball went forward, we ended up giving the ball straight back to them.

“We’ve got to look at the positives and the positives are, we haven’t been beaten, we scored a good goal and we’ve taken something from the game.”