OPPOSITE numbers Gareth Davies and Justin Miller both thought that their teams could have come away with all three points as the derby spoils were shared at Cinder Lane on Saturday.

In an archetypal game of two halves, Miller’s visiting Purton were in the ascendancy in the first half and took the lead through Ritchie Saunders but Davies’ Fairford Town hit back in the second half courtesy of Lewis Petrie’s third goal in two games, with the away side also ending the afternoon with ten men after Jamie Richards was sent off.

The draw at Cinder Lane was Fairford’s second in succession and manager Davies reckons that his team, who moved up a place into 13th in the Hellenic League Division One West table, are beginning to turn their season around.

“We didn’t start well at all and conceded another sloppy goal,” said the Fairford chief.

“When we got in at half-time, we’ve made a couple of changes because of injury and said that there was something there for us, but we just needed to put pressure on them and be a nuisance.

“Within five minutes of the second half, we’ve equalised and how we’ve not won the game, I don’t know.

“It feels like we’ve started to turn the corner now. That’s two draws and we’ve had to work hard for them, whereas before, we’d just crumble.

“I’m a little bit disappointed that we didn’t win but at the end of the day, it’s another game where we haven’t been beaten and we are improving, so that’s obviously a positive.”

Purton opened the scoring midway through the first half as midfielder Saunders collected the ball in the box following a corner and his low cross skewed its way past keeper Joe Snell.

But early in the second period, the hosts’ Petrie sublimely brought down substitute Tom Ballard’s clipped pass before slotting home through the legs of Jonny Cowely.

Purton stopper Cowley then produced a superb point-blank save to keep out Steven Hall’s strike before clawing away a curling Ballard free-kick.

The visiting keeper pulled off a third excellent stop to keep out Luke Cordery’s header before defender Richards was shown a second yellow card for clattering Fairford’s Petrie late on.

Purton chief Miller said: “They’ll probably feel like they should have had the three points because our keeper’s had to make a couple of saves and we were down to ten men but the game should have been all over by then to be fair.

“We talked about starting well because we usually start off poorly but we played the best we’ve played in the first half for a long time. But we just didn’t do well enough in the final third – a lack of quality cost us.

“We obviously had a bad period in October-time, where we got beat quite heavily, so it’s just nice that we’re pretty stable at the moment.

“We just need to try and get the boys to relax a little bit more in that final third. We’re just doing things too quickly or not quickly enough and it’s just a little bit of composure – that’s what we want to add to their games.”

Elsewhere in the division, New College’s youngsters were dealt a harsh lesson as they were decimated 9-1 at high-flying Lydney Town, with Christy Millar grabbing the consolation goal.