A LATE goal from Glen Taylor rescued a deserved point for Spennymoor Town at Haig Avenue.

Taylor’s last gasp effort, his fifth of the season, stretched Moors’ unbeaten run to three matches and put them twelfth in the table, just two points behind the play offs.

Moors enjoyed most of the possession in the game, especially in the second half, but lacked a real cutting edge until the closing stages of the game.

“I thought a point was no more than we deserved, because we had plenty of the ball and we finished the game strongly,” said manager Jason Ainsley. “I think we were the better side without creating a lot of chances. The lads kept going right to the end, and Glen again scored a late goal – he’s made a bit of a habit of it, which is credit to him.

“I thought we should have had a penalty in the opening minutes, and if we had got that and scored from it, then the game might have had a different outcome.

“Southport haven’t won for a while, and if we’d started better, it could have been a different story.

“I thought that there were plenty of times when we got into good positions, but we didn’t test the keeper, and I was unhappy with their goal, because they scored from a free header. We maybe didn’t move the ball around fast enough in the final third.

“We started slowly in the second half, so we made a couple of changes that seemed to inject a bit more urgency. I was a bit disappointed with our end product, because we didn’t hurt them enough.

“Nevertheless, it was still a good point on the road, and we’ve picked up seven points from our last nine.”

Moors were furious in the fourth minute when Rob Ramshaw made a run into the box and seemed to be pushed to the ground by a defender, but the referee waved play on.

Moors had a couple of half chances before Southport took the lead, when Ryan Astles met a right-wing corner perfectly and beat Jonathan Gould with a powerful header from ten yards out.

And the Sandgrounders nearly got a second, but Jason Gilchrist was denied from close in.

Moors’ showed some good approach play before the break, but too often the final ball wasn’t of good enough quality to test the Southport keeper.

However, Moors raised themselves for the last 20 minutes. Southport keeper Jason Manford made a great save from a Shane Henry free kick, and Ryan Hall also fired into the keeper’s hands.

With five minutes left they almost equalised when Kris Thackray thundered a shot against the bar, and the ball bounced off Manford’s back before being cleared.

But deep into stoppage time they finally broke through when Hall crossed for Taylor to head past Manford at the far post.

Moors now have a free midweek ahead of their long away trip to Leamington this Saturday.

Spennymoor: Gould, Hibbs, Curtis, Atkinson (Thackray 58), Brogan (Hall 76), Chandler, Ramshaw, Henry, Tuton, Taylor, Johnson (Boyes 89). Subs (not used): Elliott, Hayes,

Attendance: 821