‘Naive’ Belper Town let two-goal lead slip against Newcastle Town

Michael Towey had put the Nailers ahead before Jordan Cole levelled for Newcastle Town from the penalty spot in the 2015/16 season opener.

Goals from Evan Garnett and Grant Ryan inside five second half minutes put Belper into a commanding position before the visitors replied.

Two quick fire goals from Neville Thompson and Thomas France stunned the hosts in an action-packed second half as it ended 3-3 on Saturday.

Albans said: “You can never be pleased when you are 3-1 up at home and you end up drawing the match but I thought we played some great football and probably created enough chances to win two or three football matches.

“I just thought we were too naive towards the end and our discipline let us down.”

The Nailer’s gaffer was particularly impressed with Rob Stevenson, Garnett and Ryan who spearheaded the attack in Belper’s 4-3-3 formation.

“The front three worked very, very hard for each other,” said Albans. “It was a very committed performance from all three of them and it was nice that two of them got on the score sheet.

“You would not want to mark Rob Stevenson for 90 minutes because he is a very talented player and on another day we could have scored five or six goals.

“Both goals from Grant and Evan were superb, individual brilliance from Evan and to do what Grant did from 30 yards out would not have looked out of place at any level.”

Belper face two consecutive away games starting tonight (August 19) at Carlton and Rugby Town on Saturday (August 22) in the Evo-Stik Division One South.

Albans added: “We will go to Carlton full of confidence, we have set a goal out to do extremely well in this league and we need to go into every game expecting to pick points up, we felt we deserved to beat Newcastle but we go again Wednesday looking for those three points again.”