Witham Town manager Mark Ashford felt his team should be rightly proud of the point they earned from their local derby against Heybridge Swifts.

There was nothing between the two sides as a 1-1 draw gave them a Bostik League division north point apiece on Friday night, with Andrew Tirivanhu putting Town ahead before Harrison Chatting headed in Swifts’ equaliser.

The point was an important one for Ashford’s side as the draw ended a run of five straight league defeats and he felt there was little between his team and their high-flying visitors.

He said: “Heybridge would probably feel they had chances, but we felt we had chances as well.

“I think we executed our game plan well in the first 20 minutes and I felt we were the better team as we stopped them from doing what they are good at.

“Sometimes you have to do that in football and when we scored, it was a deserved goal.

“We looked a threat and I thought it was a deserved lead, but we just lost our way little bit.

“They were tiny things but those are the fine margins I keep talking about, with players switching off or not doing their job out of possession and they got a period of play where they deserved the equaliser.

“I thought 1-1 was a fair reflection at half-time.

“We created a lot of half-chances, but Luca (Collins), our goalkeeper, has not made a proper save the whole game whereas Chris Haig to make four or five saves for them.

“There was also the chance right at the end from a set piece for Elias (Siligato), against his old team ; I expected him to score but he put it over the crossbar and that’s the difference between three points and one.

“However, had anyone watched that, I don’t think they’d be able to tell which was the team who are up at the top and looking to press on to try to win the league and which was the one second from bottom.

“I think we can be rightly proud of ourselves because it’s a good point.

“It could have been more, but it’s a good point and it sets us up nicely for Soham Town Rangers away next weekend."