Carlsberg South West Peninsula League division one East

Axminster Town 1

Okehampton Argyle 1

ARGYLE might have expected more than a point from this game against bottom of the table Axminster but the Tigers are a feisty side and took a point away from Okehampton in the reverse fixture earlier this season.

Argyle were forced to field a scratch squad with several players unavailable and they had to travel with a bare eleven. The match was fairly even throughout but the Tigers had the better of the first 30 minutes and took the lead on nine minutes when a beautifully flighted right wing corner was powerfully headed home by their player manager Gary McAuley. This was the only real chance of the first half with the Argyle defence in fine form in the air and captain Dale Chadwick having a tremendous match as a central defender. Argyle struggled to make much progress up front with an early groin injury to John Coakley taking the pace out of the forward line.

New Argyle signing Benn McIvaney had a tremendous debut in midfield and was the best Oke player on view before the interval.

Okehampton came out strongly after the break and pushed hard for an equaliser. Most of their threat was coming from midfield where Toby Gostling, Ed Squire and McIvaney began to dominate. Twenty minutes after the interval, a powerful attack developed and Toby Gostling's hard low cross from the left hand edge of the penalty area evaded both his own forwards and Axminster keeper Brett Garner to finish in the corner of the home net.

The game then developed into an end to end affair and both sides had chances. Harry Geering in the Oke goal was in fine form and ensured the Tigers were kept at bay, while at the other end, the Argyle forwards were unable to convert a couple of clear cut chances.

At the end of the day, a draw was a fair result, but Argyle missed the quality of players like Alex Wren, James Williams and Ollie Crimmins, all unavailable on the day. They also have to solve the problem of penetration up front and were sadly missing outstanding Royal Navy forward Gary Hird, who has left the club to play local league football to reduce travelling.