Cheltenham Town 1 Harrogate Town 1: 'Immense' Sulphurites climb out of League Two relegation zone

Conor McAleny converted an 80th-minute spot-kick to earn the Sulphurites a deserved share of the spoils, with that point sufficient to lift them one place to 22nd in the table and above Bristol Rovers on goal difference.

Having had the better of the contest, seen a ‘goal’ ruled out by referee Michael Barlow and wasted a glorious opportunity to break the deadlock, the injury-ravaged visitors were hit with a sucker punch when Robins substitute Jake Bickerstaff struck in the 73rd minute.

But, instead of feeling sorry for themselves, Town rallied and were awarded a penalty as a decent move down their right flank ended when Jack Muldoon was caught inside the box by Cheltenham centre-half James Wilson.

McAleny kept his cool from 12 yards to level matters and that strike ensured that struggling Harrogate avoided an eighth defeat in 10 league outings.

"The work-rate and attitude was immense,” Weaver said. “We’ve got to take a lot of pride from the performance and the graft of the players because they were relentless today.

"We created a lot of chances, and we probably should have scored more than one goal, but I have to say that it is a very valuable point.

"I think that is the least we deserved. I didn’t need to look at the stats after the game to confirm it, but we had the upper hand in terms of chances and strikes on goal.

“We started on the front foot, the shape was good and the lads carried out our instructions perfectly well. We had two of three good chances to go in at half-time leading the game.

"It wasn’t to be, but even when Cheltenham scored, the lads didn’t behave like they were down on their luck, and we bounced back. The lads should be really proud of themselves for the way they responded.”

It was the home side who created the first real opening of the game when Hakeeb Adelakun twice got the better of Harrogate captain Warren Burrell before unleashing a powerful strike that James Belshaw did well to tip away.

Anthony O’Connor then appeared to have given Town the lead, but that effort was disallowed by referee Barlow for an apparent foul on Robins goalkeeper Joe Day.

Reece Smith then spurned a golden chance to put Harrogate in front, shooting tamely at Day from close to the penalty spot when he had the whole goal to aim at after McAleny had pulled the ball back to him from the right side of the penalty area.

Robbie Cundy then nodded wide for Cheltenham at the other end before the Sulphurites threatened again. Muldoon’s close-range header was parried by Day, who also managed to deny the Town striker on the follow-up.

There was little between the sides during the first 25 minutes of the second half, and even less for either set of fans to get excited about.

But it seemed like it was going to be the same old story for beleaguered Harrogate when they fell behind on 73 minutes.

Wrexham loanee Bickerstaff drove at Anthony O’Connor before beating Belshaw with a strike which rebounded off a post and straight back into the Cheltenham attacker’s path for a simple tap-in.

But, seven minutes later, Muldoon was left in a heap by a clumsy-looking challenge by Wilson, and McAleny sent Day the wrong way with the resulting penalty to register his third goal of the season.

Day had to make another save to keep out a curling effort from McAleny late on, and the points were shared in the end.

On whether the match officials cost his side all three, Weaver added: “I think we had a really good penalty shout for handball that was turned down, and then the disallowed goal for the collision between their two players.

"These are scratch-your-head moments again for us, and probably because of that, we should have won the game.

"We felt like it looked like a couple of defenders collided with the goalkeeper, we score the goal and then the referee cancels it.

"It beggars belief, but it has been a half season of that. We can’t control it, but we just have to hope that standards improve in the second half of the season.”

Cheltenham were also unhappy with the performance of Mr Barlow and were adamant that Harrogate should not have been awarded that late spot kick.

And Weaver did concede that the penalty decision was a marginal one.

"I do think that he [Muldoon] was clever as a centre-forward,” the Town boss continued. “If you get your body between the ball and the opponent and he wraps his foot around and doesn’t get the ball – it looked to me to be a penalty.

"Maybe because the referee missed a certain one in the first half, I felt that anything that was small margins either way, we might have a chance of something, and it went our way on this occasion.”