Corby Town stop the rot with draw on the road

Jordan O'Brien was on the spot to score a penalty for Corby Town. Picture by Jim Darrah

Gary Mills knows his Corby Town players must keep “battling away” after they finally stopped the rot with a 2-2 draw at Sutton Coldfield Town.

The Steelmen went into the clash on the back of a dreadful run of seven defeats in a row in the Northern Premier League Midlands, which had resulted in increasing pressure on the Corby manager.

It looked like an eighth loss in a row could be on the cards as the hosts raced into an early 2-0 lead but, this time, the Steelmen hit back thanks to a Jordan O’Brien penalty and a fine finish from Connor Furey.

Mills felt he was helped by having close to a full-strength squad to choose from and he praised his players for playing with “a lot of heart”.

“We had to get a result, no matter how we got it,” the Steelmen boss said.

“The difference today was that I had players to choose from. It was nearly a full squad and we have come out of it with a result away from home.

“It’s a start for us, we were away from home and Sutton had a good win last week.

“I thought we started well again but, as has been happening, we found ourselves 2-0 down within 15 minutes.

“But we fought our way back today. I thought we were much the better team in the second half.

“It’s a point we needed. I knew that if we lost, they went above us but the gap stays there now.

“We’re not in a position to say we are going to do this or that next week or the week after. We have to keep battling away.

“I thought we fought and, I will say it again, we had options.

“We had 11 players last week and it was almost like a hiding to nothing. This time, there were no excuses with the number of players I had available.

“I thought we played with a lot of heart and that’s not easy when you have lost seven games.

“You have to be a certain type of character to not be scared to go out there and make a bad pass.

“When you lose seven games, the confidence goes but we didn’t look like a team lacking confidence.

“To go 2-0 down and fight back with the situation in and get back to 2-2 and then have the chances to go and win it is a massive positive for all of us.”

The Steelmen will hope to build on that draw when they entertain Yaxley at Steel Park next weekend.