Peaks: Diamonds deserved the late break

Andy Peaks felt AFC Rushden & Diamonds fully deserved their late 'break' as they secured a 1-1 draw at fellow high-fliers Beaconsfield Town.
By The Newsroom
Published 1st Apr 2018, 10:13 BST
Updated 1st Apr 2018, 10:20 BST
AFC Rushden & Diamonds boss Andy PeaksAFC Rushden & Diamonds boss Andy Peaks
AFC Rushden & Diamonds boss Andy Peaks

Diamonds looked to be heading for defeat as they trailed to Nathan Webb’s first-half goal.

But they were awarded a penalty for handball in stoppage-time and, although Ryan Robbins’ spot-kick was saved, he was on hand to score from the rebound to help keep Diamonds on course for one of the two automatic promotion places in the Evo-Stik South League East.

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Diamonds, who are without a win in four matches, are now a point clear of second-placed Hayes & Yeading United but remain three ahead of Beaconsfield who are third.

“I was delighted in the end,” Diamonds boss Peaks said.

“If someone had given me a point beforehand, I probably would have taken it. When you get to this stage of the season and you are picking up a point away from home against one of your rivals in the top six then I think you can be happy.

“We got the break at the end and I thought we earned it.

“We needed to make sure Beaconsfield didn’t gain ground on us and I thought our performance was pretty good overall, it certainly merited a point and I think everyone felt it was a fair result afterwards.

“We had chances in the game but we haven’t had a great deal of luck over the past couple of weeks and we got a bit of that just when we needed it with Ryan’s penalty being saved but the rebound going straight to him.

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“We got that break, we fully deserved it and now we can move on.”

Weather permitting, Diamonds are due to be back in action at Hayden Road tomorrow (Monday, 3pm) when Bedford Town are the visitors.

And Peaks added: “It’s going to be a very tough game because Bedford are in a good run of form at the moment. Hopefully the weather holds and we will be able to get the game on.

“It’s not been the best of runs for us. But I thought we played pretty well in the games we lost to Hayes and Hartley Wintney but then we weren’t good enough against Uxbridge.

“I thought we put in the sort of display we have come to expect from this group at the weekend and there should be lots of confidence in the squad after that.”