St Ives Town collected another welcome point in their pursuit of Southern League Premier Division Central survival on Tuesday.

Ricky Marheineke’s men shared the spoils in a 1-1 draw with mid-table side Hednesford at Westwood Road.

The two teams exchanged goals within a minute midway through the second half with Joe Curtis’ opener for Saints being cancelled out almost immediately.

And while that failure to hold onto the lead frustrated Marheineke, he liked much of what he saw from his team as they closed the gap to safety to three points.

“It was a good, honest, hard-working performance,” said Marheineke.

“We didn’t do enough to win the game but we certainly didn’t deserve to lose it either.

“The draw was the right result overall on the balance of play, but we would have obviously liked all three points.

“It’s frustrating that we couldn’t be a bit more streetwise after scoring. The adrenaline of getting ahead probably hurt us as we lost our shape and got picked off by Hednesford.

“The swing of emotion was massive but we then showed really good character to regain our focus as Hednesford sensed blood.”

Curtis steered Saints’ best opportunity of the first half into the side netting after an Ollie Snaith shot was pushed into his path by Hednesford keeper Andy Wycherley.

Conway then ensured the scoreline remained blank by pulling off a fine save to deny Jed Davies an opener for the visitors just before the interval.

The breakthrough was eventually broken midway through the second half when Curtis fired through a crowd of players following a Ben Seymour-Shove corner.

But Saints saw their advantaged wiped out seconds later as Hednesford leading scorer Danny Glover pounced at the other end after Tom Hamblin failed to deal with a Davies cross.

And only the heroics of number one Conway prevented the visitors from going on to claim victory as he pulled off a series of smart saves in the remainder of the contest.