Brentwood Town 2-2 Dartford

DARTFORD showed the iron will which makes champions when they won a point at Brentwood after battling for 85 minutes with 10 men.

Jay May saw red early on for a two-footed tackle which resulted a 12-man melee in the fifth minute of a rain-drenched encounter at the Brentwood Arena on Tuesday evening.

Manager Tony Burman played an unchanged line-up against play-off fringe club Brentwood with the Darts kicking off down the slight slope on what started out as a pleasant early spring evening.

Proceedings were barely underway when the May incident occurred.

The real outcome was Dartford showed yet another facet of a rapidly-maturing team and battled man-for-man for the rest of the game and, after half-time, against the ever-worsening conditions.

At the end the Darts were hailed by their supporters as they left with a point to add to the total.

Needless to say Darts took time to adjust while dealing with opponents who, at times, played some near-decent football.

The home side did find time to rough up Phil Williams, particularly midway through the second period when he was felled by a nasty tackle which received a yellow card.

Brentwood stole the lead midway through the first half when skipper Danny Dafter forced the ball home from a left-side corner.

After the break, Darts camped in the home half and drew level through a move involving Junior Kadi, Ryan Hayes, Jamie Coyle and rounded off with a typically clinical goal from Brendon Cass.

Darts took the lead minutes later when John Guest looped the ball over the stranded Marc Palmer.

Lee Noble slid the ball home within 60 seconds in the paddyfield-like visiting goalmouth and then Tony Kessell made an outstanding save to deny Brentwood an unlikely winner.

The players were greeted as heroes at the final whistle and now the show moves on to Sudbury on Saturday.

Dartford: Kessell, Coyle, Norman, Flanagan, Guest, O'Brien, Hayes, May, Cass, Kadi, Williams (Green). Subs not used: Moore, Osborne, Avery. Att: 320