REPORT: St Helens Town 3 Alsager 3

It was a game that had everything – plenty of goals, incidents, controversy and a rousing finish in which Lee Jenkinson's side were unlucky not to hold out for a Hallmark Security League One win.

Visitors Alsager levelled the scores deep into injury time to salvage their own point.

On a cold, sunny day, the match started as a slow burner, with few chances in the first half to provide signs of what was to come.

Tom Grimshaw put St Helens 1-0 ahead with his first goal for the club after 20 minutes.

But, typical of Town's play this season, they allowed their guests to equalise four minutes later when the home defence failed to clear a seemingly harmless ball and Paul Taylor netted at the third attempt to level matters.

The second half built up a head of steam midway through as substitute Paul Cliff scored a fine goal from a tight angle from wide out on the left wing.

Town had two or three good chances to make the game safe through Cliff and Liam Diggle.

Then a number of hefty challenges, principally from the visitors, were allowed to go unpunished by the referee, who appeared to lose control.

Players from both sides received yellow cards in confrontations as the match deteriorated into a series of midfield squabbles.

Diggle was cautioned for kicking the ball away and shortly afterwards was the victim of a heavy shove from Matt German.

The Town man appeared to do no more than stand his ground, but both players received yellow cards which left Town down to 10 men for the last 20 minutes.

With four minutes remaining, veteran striker Mickey Lennon grabbed an equaliser to make the score 2-2 but almost from the re-start St Helens swept the length of the field for substitute Ben Bolton to restore the home side’s lead in the 88th minute.

All 10 players celebrated wildly.

Alsager’s equaliser came seven minutes into added time from the villain of the piece German, who tucked away a neat shot just inside Kieran Yong’s left post.