Stalemate provides a gauge for Watson
LIAM Watson felt the point earned against Brackley Town was an opportunity to gauge just how far away his side are from the National League North’s top teams.
Port and second-placed Brackley fought out a goalless draw at the Pure Stadium in which Max Dyche was red-carded after an hour for hauling down Tyler Walton.
Ironically, the visitors if anything improved after the dismissal with Southport unable to reproduce the football that had them on top prior to the incident.
Still, Sandgrounders’ boss Watson was buoyed by what he saw.
“I think it was a bonus, a good game for me to learn how far away we are, can we realistically have a go at the bigger teams in the league?” he said
“Once they went down to ten men I think we missed a bit of know-how, but I have to look at myself and ask ‘did I change the shape at the wrong time?’ I wanted to try and be proactive. I brought another winger on and we lost control of the game, which we shouldn’t have because they were one down across the middle of the pitch and up front, so we should have been good enough.
“But if someone had offered me a nil-nil before the game, trust me, I’d have taken it.
“It was a tough game, you rarely get an easy game against Brackley. I think in thelast three games we’ve played against them here we’ve had two goalless draws and a 1-0 win on a penalty.
“They might be upset about their disallowed goal – the referee was pretty adamant it was a push.
“They had a couple of chances, but on the balance of play I actually thought we were the better side in the first half. We shaded it and had them penned in, we had two or three opportunities but it never happened for us.
“As the sending off happened, if you’d have asked me, I’d have preferred for Tyler (Walton) to have gone clean through and for them to have stayed at 11 men.
“Once they went down to ten men, Brackley showed all their know-how and experience and became the better team.
“They had two great chances to score – good defending by us – but we became deep.”
A game pitting two of the best defences in the division had many tipsters predicting a 0-0 draw ahead of the game with Brackley and Southport boasting the most clean sheets this season.
The sides cancelled each other out and in the end neither deserved to win or lose with chances few and far between.
Southport had the better of the first half and could have grabbed the lead when Jordan Archer just failed to get on the end of a Dylan Vassallo cross and that was as close as the home side came to scoring.
It was a similar story for the first 15 minutes of the second period but the game changed on 60 minutes when Dyche was sent off for pulling back the impressive Walton when he was through on goal.
It was a decision greeted with much dismay by the vocal Brackley bench who seemed intent on having a go at the referee from minute one to 95.
Brackley were the better team when reduced to 10 and Lee Ndlovu had two great chances to put them ahead but was foiled firstly by a fine Cam
Mason save then a wayward finish.
The visitors did have the ball in the net but it was disallowed after a push in the box on Jack Doyle.
Southport did have a brief flurry in added time, going close twice from long throws but the game petered out and it ended 0-0.
Southport will be happy to take the point against a very solid Brackley side and maintain their place in the play off zone.
Following the final whistle a member of the Brackley bench was also shown a red card for confronting the referee in an aggressive manner.
Southport were due to take on Lancaster City at Leyland in the Lancashire Challenge Trophy on Wednesday evening as the Visiter went to press and, on Saturday, Watson’s men travel to Chorley in the league.