DORCHESTER Town manager Steve Thompson had no arguments with a 0-0 scoreline against Merthyr Town in their Evo-Stik Southern Premier South clash at the Clayson Stadium.

Merthyr enjoyed more chances, Lee Lucas twice denied by fabulous saves from Kingsley Latham, while home substitute Tom Blair sidefooted wide when clean through late on.

Merthyr captain Ashley Evans and assistant-manager Dean Clarke were then sent off in a fractious end to the game.

Speaking to Echosport after the stalemate, which yielded Dorchester’s first clean sheet of the league season, Thompson admitted he could have “no complaints” with a point.

He said: “It was a close game, not many chances for either team. I don’t think we can argue with a draw.

“If anything, they probably had two or three chances whereas we just had the one big one about 15 minutes from the end.

“No complaints – I think a draw is near enough a fair result.

“They may feel they edged it because they had two or three chances compared to our one.

“Overall I thought second half was an improvement, we looked a bit more dangerous. It’s similar to Yate, we had lots of possession but didn’t bother the keeper at all in the first half.”

Thompson revealed he had held a meeting with his defenders after a galling 4-1 defeat to Harrow, and his back line has responded with two clean sheets in three games.

On his defenders’ improved display, he said: “We had a meeting after the Harrow game.

“I said, ‘forget all this about getting a striker in and scoring, if we defend like that we’ll get relegated.’

“To be fair to the players, they have tried to put that right and we’ve only let one in in the last three games.

“We’ve tightened up a lot in terms of the marking and what’s expected of defenders.

“That’s a positive. On the negative side we haven’t created a lot whereas against Yate away we created eight or nine chances.

“We can’t really moan about a 0-0 draw, we’ve only really created the one chance, but it was an improvement in the second half.

“(Merthyr) are a decent team, they score a lot of goals and let in a lot of goals.

“We obviously have let in quite a lot of goals and although we don’t score a lot you would have bet on goals with their record and ours. It was a strange one really.”

Regarding a second successive clean sheet, earned after Tuesdays’ 2-0 win over Yate Town in the FA Trophy, Thompson recalled the defensive meeting in which players were “embarrassed”.

He said: “It had to be done, people had to be shown. It wasn’t pretty. People might have been embarrassed but they needed to be because it wasn’t acceptable what happened at Harrow.

“Two clean sheets – you do have to look for positives because people are very quick to find the negatives in football.

“I have no complaints about the effort – I rarely do. That’s why Harrow was a bit of a shock. The effort and application wasn’t there.”

On Blair’s golden chance, Thompson added: “It would have been the ultimate 1-0 win. You create one chance, score one goal.

“Possession was pretty equal for both teams. I felt we were the better team second half, they were better first half.

“To say we were not clinical wouldn’t be accurate because we’ve only had one chance. If you only create one chance you’re going to do well to win a game.

“The next best thing is to draw the game and we’ve done that.”