ANDOVER Lions could only pick up a point against fellow strugglers AFC Petersfield from Saturday’s match at the Athletics Track.

Louis Attrill and Ben Morris made their debuts and Aaron Jeffery was back to bolster the home line up.

Lions were high on confidence having beaten their opponents in the reverse fixture and on the back of their recent cup success at Cosham but made the worst possible start when on four minutes a deep cross split the home defence and Harry Giles controlled the ball instantly and neatly flicked past the oncoming George Baxter.

The Lions’ best efforts in the early stages came from set pieces with Morris and Jon Robb both heading over from Aaron Jeffery free-kicks.

On the quarter hour Lions drew level with a fine breakaway goal.

Petersfield worked space on the edge of the area and Baxter made a fine save and his quick release set Attrill free and the midfielder played a defence splitting pass to Dan Reynolds who lost his marker and slotted the ball past the keeper from 25 yards.

Chances followed at both ends but Lions finished the half in the ascendancy but the score at the break was level at a goal apiece.

The second half was a real end to end affair. Jeffery pushed forward into midfield and became influential but Petersfield always looked threatening on the break and George Baxter was called upon to make several one-onone saves to keep the scores level.

Reynolds had one final chance to take the points after again outpacing his marker but his driven shot went over the bar.

After the match Chris Paris was reasonably happy with the performance.

He said: “We have a number of new players coming into the team at the moment and it’s going to take a bit of time for them all play together so we can’t really grumble at what’s happened today. We would like to be beating teams like this but in fairness the game could have gone either way.

“George Baxter made some crucial saves at big points in the match and that will do his confidence a lot of good. Reynolds caused their defence no end of problems down the right, they could not live with his pace.

“We just need to have more confidence in front of goal and the ability to take just some of the chances that we are creating. Too many of our best efforts today were from well outside of the box. We need to be more aware and decisive in it.”

Tomorrow Lions take on Broughton, kick-off 2pm, at Charlton.