Notts County 1-1 Halifax Town (National League) 22.02.22

The Magpies were held at home by Halifax despite the visitors being reduced to ten men in the first half when leading after an early Aaron Martin strike, Elisha Sam’s goal on the stroke of half time couldn’t help push Notts on to all three points with Ian Burchnall’s men having to settle for a draw.

Martin netted on 18 after beating Notts goalkeeper Jaros to the ball following a long pass played over the top of the Notts defence, and as the home team chased an early leveller, two fouls from Jack Senior in quick succession had the Shayman receive a yellow and red card on 35 reducing Peter Wild’s men to ten.

Elisha Sam struck low past Johnson a minute before half time to level things up, but despite a second half of further knocking on the visitors door, time and time again, Notts couldn’t break down the barrier that was the resolute Halifax defence, in search of a winner.

Wootton had a penalty appeal turned down on the hour before Sam snatched at a shot and Rodrigues had one saved by Johnson, Richardson, Roberts, then Sam all going close before injury time when Kyle Cameron crashed a header against the crossbar and Kyle Wootton had an opportunity cleared off the line.

Head Coach Ian Burchnall stating after “It’s the best 45 we’ve played, we made one mistake that lead to a goal but other than that I thought we were fantastic”.

“We missed some big chances, we missed an open goal and two or three more after that, in the second half I think we’ve hit the post twice, the bar once.”

“It’s not easy to play against ten men, we’ve seen that before, after the red card they don’t register a single attempt on goal, we control the game, the only thing is we don’t finish our chance, but Ithought the performance level of our players was high, very high”

Notts County: Jaros, Chicksen, Cameron, Brindley, Richardson, Francis (Brunt 70 (Vincent 86)) Palmer, Rodrigues, Sam (Mitchell 86), Roberts, Wootton.

Halifax Town: Johnson, Senior, Spence, Debrah, Bradbury, Allen, Maher (Thomas 77), Martin (Gilmour 46), Summerfield, Waters (McDonagh 79), Woods.

Venue: Meadow Lane (5,603)

*Main image @Official_NCFC Ruben Rodrigues goes agonizingly close.