CRANBORNE fought back to deny Dorchester Town Reserves the three points in a 1-1 draw at Penny's Lane in the Dorset Premier League.

The Magpies were without Larbi Mekchiche and Shaun Smith who were both unavailable, and they also lost John Graham after a couple of minutes through injury but it did not stop them from controlling the first half.

Scott Oliver and substitute Adam Symes both went close with the latter shooting wide when faced with a golden one-on-one opportunity.

The visitors also had a shout for a penalty turned down when a cross into the box seemed to hit the hands of a Cranborne defender.

The deadlock was finally broken when Symes set up Raj Chengadu on 55 minutes but that was wiped out with 15 minutes remaining when Sean Hebdon headed home from a free-kick.

Town assistant manager Tony Williams took charge of the side in the absence of boss Kevin Hillier, who had work commitments, and overall he was happy with his players' performance.

He said: "In the first half I thought we had all the play and should have got in front. We had a blatant penalty turned down when a cross hit one of their player's hands in the box but sometimes you get them and sometimes you don't.

"We then deservedly took the lead in the second half with a good goal before we got sloppy and conceded an equaliser from a free-kick.

"Overall, considering all the changes we had to make, I was pretty pleased and there were a lot of positives we could take from it.

"We have just got to start putting away our chances. We had three good opportunities in the first half but did not take any of them."

Magpies: R Coward, J Coward, R Chengadu, K Chengadu, Pryor, Vatcher, Moores, Graham (Symes), Diaper, Oliver, Clark.