Town had to settle for a point on their first visit to Mangotsfield in ten years last night despite dominating the first hour of the match.

Town’s one change from Saturday’s win over Thatcham saw Pitcher start with Orchard moving to midfield to the exclusion of Beadle.

After an early flurry from Mangotsfield, Bridgwater settled down to play neat passing football and their first chance came after six minutes.

A long ball found Price galloping down the right and his cross was turned goalwards by Duharty, who was foiled by the alert Court in the home goal.

After a shaky start Laird and Pitcher at the back managed to settle down and snuff out any home attacks with solid defending.

Bridgwater’s danger came entirely down their right with Pepperell having the beating of his full-back, and it was his pass outside to Price that enabled Duharty to score at the near post in a carbon copy of his earlier attempt.

This time Court just failed to prevent the ball squirming past him on 21 minutes.

Five minutes later, more pressure down the right led to a corner and Duharty was unmarked to head home and double his, and Bridgwater’s, tally.

For the remainder of the half Bridgwater dominated, their composed football had Mangotsfield chasing shadows.

They looked far more comfortable on the ball, and on this form Mangotsfield will have a job to regain their Premier Division status.

Town keeper Hutchings’ one piece of serious first half action came on 36 minutes when he shovelled a header round the post.

There was little change at the start of the second half with Duharty leading the line well laying off the ball to Pepperell, whose shot sailed wide.

There was an imbalance in the Bridgwater attack with Pounde seeing little of the ball throughout the game.

Mangotsfield got back into the tie on 58 minutes when a fine long range shot from Prosser flew into the net.

A brilliant save from Court kept out a close range flick from Kirk who was the pick of the Town midfield, and Monks was very unlucky not to restore Bridgwater’s two goal lead when his swerving, dipping free kick thudded against the angle of bar and post.

After the defenders had over played the ball across the back, Robertson trying to retrieve the situation fouled Scott and received a second yellow and was dismissed.

Robertson could consider himself unlucky as these were his only two fouls of the game.

The cautions mounted, including one for Price for the rare offence of returning to the field without permission.

Mangotsfield’s cautions were for bad fouls leaving Laird, Pepperell, Price and Duharty all in need of treatment.

Taking advantage of the extra man, Mangotsfield got right back into it and Baxter skated through a tiring defence before finishing with a neat shot to equalise with ten minutes left.

In those ten minutes, Mangotsfield looked much more likely to snatch a winner as Town had to hang on for a draw.