BRIDPORT RESERVES 4 SHAFTESBURY TOWN 4

BRIDPORT Reserves squandered an opportunity to claim three points against Shaftesbury Town in an incident-packed encounter at St Mary’s Field.

With Jack Scovell’s strike cancelling out an early breakthrough for the visitors before the interval, the game seemed fairly calm going into the second-half.

But the contest then burst into life with both sides sharing six goals and the visitors suffering two red cards in a frantic 45 minutes.

“It was a very entertaining game for the neutral but not for me,” Bees’ boss Robin Townsend told Echosport.

After Sean Gale found the net to level things up at 2-2, visitors Shaftesbury were then reduced to 10 men after a visiting defender was adjudged to have handled a goalbound shot on the line and was given his marching orders.

Up stepped Ben Clarke, who calmly converted the resulting spot-kick to put Townsend’s men a goal to the good midway through the second half.

And when another Shaftesbury player was given an early bath midway through the second period, Townsend must have thought the Bees were home and dry.

But the clash was far from over, and with a two-man deficit to overcome, the visitors rallied and scored twice in quick succession to put themselves in front once again.

The Bees did salvage a point late on when Michael Hailu pop-ped up to grab an equaliser five minutes from time.

Townsend's men will now switch their focus to a trip to the Bob Lucas Stadium, as they take on Weymouth Reserves tomorrow (3pm).

Commenting on the fixture, the Bridport boss added: “It is a massive game, they are where they are in the league for a reason and it is not going to be easy. But we have two games left and hopefully we can get two wins.”

Bees (from): B Fleet, Fry, Lock, Day, S Gale, Legg, Steele, Hailu, Scovell, Clarke, McClements, Cummings