​Dronfield strike late to deny Shirebrook Town a crucial win

They now need to win their final game at Worsbrough Bridge Athletic on Saturday and hope Parkgate lose both of their last two.

Shirebrook boss Steven Bodle said: “Obviously I’m disappointed with the way the game finished. I wasn’t happy with what I saw from the players in the first half and we made a change at half-time.

“I thought we were much better in the second half. We moved the ball better and got a deserved goal.

“So it was really annoying we couldn’t see out the game and get the three points and we now have a huge game at Worsbrough that we need to win. We’ll train twice this week and make sure the players are ready.”

Shirebrook started the game well but failed to test Lewis Naylor in the Dronfield goal.

The first major chance of the game fell to Dronfield's Joe Pearson after he latched on to Mark Fereday’s cross, but his shot was comfortably saved by Levi Owen.

Just before the break Dronfield again went close as Fereday skied a shot over the bar while Matthew Thompson saw a volley saved by Naylor as the sides went in level.

Bodle made a change at the break with Sam Foulds coming on to replace George Slack.

This change also saw a change in shape and almost had an instant impact as Oliver Grady saw his shot saved by Naylor and Jake Squires saw an effort go just over the bar in the 76th minute.

Squires then saw his shot acrobatically tipped away to his right by Naylor.

From that resulting corner Shirebrook finally made the breakthrough as it wasn’t cleared and, after a scramble in the box, Nathan Murr prodded the ball into the net from close range.

As the game went into the last ten minutes Shirebrook had a golden opportunity as Squires saw an effort saved by Naylor's outstretched leg.

But just when it looked like Shirebrook had the win in the bag they were hit with a sucker punch five minutes into injury time as a Fereday corner caused panic and Pearson smashed the ball against the bar but Regan Rooke reacted quickest to drill the ball through a crowd of players into the net.