Ossett Albion 1 Wllenhall Town 1

The Red’s remain unbeaten in the Unibond Division one, but once again, they had to come from behind to maintain that record against Ossett Albion in the first ever meeting between the two clubs.

Willenhall took time to adjust to the notorious side sloping pitch at Queen Terrace and the first half was a disappointing affair with neither side really showing anything like the form that bought both sides promotion last season.

Albion were almost given a helping hand to score from an unlikely source as Martin Myers had to use drastic measures to stop Mick Norbury. The Willenhall Town skipper nipped in to take the ball away from the strikers boot, but his intervention gave visiting keeper Nathan Vaughan a problem as the back pass carried some pace and Vaughan did well to

The Red’s best chance fell to midfielder Jason Smith when he beat the offside trap and fired an instant shot goal wards only to see Andy Carney palm the effort onto the angle of the woodwork.

The second half bought a much needed increase in quality on the pitch, although it started off disastrously for the visitors. On 47 minutes, a routine ball pumped forward should have been dealt with by a combination of Craig Slater and Vaughan, but both failed to realise the danger until Ossett’s top scorer Danny Toronczak took full advantage of the fatal hesitation to nip in and lift the ball over the stranded keeper.

That sparked off the game and Willenhall realising that they would have to come from behind for a third successive game, set about doing just that.

A long clearance had Smith behind the home defence, but he totally misjudged his attempted chip to send the ball high and wide of the target. However, Albion failed to learn from that near miss and in the 58^th minute an identical move brought the Red’s an equaliser.

Vaughan’s massive clearance should have been dealt with by either Guy Dodd or Richard Stack. Instead both went for the ball which dropped neatly between the two defenders and Smith was quickly onto the chance to take the ball forward and coolly slot past Carney at his left hand post.

Looking the stronger, Willenhall replaced Justin Tyrell with John Quilt and the big striker almost grabbed a goal as his directed header from a Smith cross needed Carney to grab the ball at full stretch.

Albion themselves might have gained a second as a cross in the right had Willenhall in all sorts of trouble and as the ball cannoned around in the area only some desperate defending kept the sides on an even keel.

Quilt then had a glorious chance to win it for the visitors as a pass chipped over the Albion defence saw the striker take the ball well on his chest to open up the space in front of goal, but last seasons top scorer dragged his final effort wide of the far post.

Willenhall Town are in FA Cup action on Saturday when they travel to fellow Unibond Division One side Eastwood Town. Kick off 3pm.

Russell Brown