Westbury United 2-2 Malmesbury Victoria

MALMESBURY Victoria travelled to one of the title favourites Westbury United on Wednesday and came away with a well-earned point.

The visitors were buoyed by the return of Josh Hughes and Ant Brown who after both leaving in pre-season for Wootton Bassett have now opted to make the switch back to Malmesbury.

Matty Jenkins was also at the manager’s disposal along with Nick Peare who is have dual signed with Mangotsfield.

Malmesbury changed the shape slightly from Saturday’s defeat against Portishead and chose to go with a 4-1-3-2 formation.

The players immediately looked comfortable in their new formation and were firmly on the front foot during the opening stages of the game.

However, the game was very evenly matched during the first half with clear cut chances hard to come by.

Malmesbury found themselves a goal behind on the half hour mark when a long ball from Liam Milburn at left back found Dan Kovacs inside the box, he was upended by Neurin Jones but dusted himself off to score the penalty.

The visitors started the second half brightly, forcing a number of corners but again not supplying the end product.

Westbury were soon two goals to the good when a good pass found Jamie Jordan at the back post who calmly slotted past Clatworthy from inside the box.

This seemed to kick start Malmesbury into another gear and they halved the deficit quickly.

A long Ewen Kenny throw found skipper George Peare inside the box, with some very nimble feet he found himself half a yard of space and drilled low past Porter.

Malmesbury began to dominate and they scored a deserved equaliser with 17 minutes left on the clock.

Jamie Packer produced a wonderful right footed volley into the top corner following an expertly executed ball over the Westbury centre halves from Josh Hughes.

Hughes then went very close to winning the game when he burst into the box and from an acute angle smashed a left footed effort against the bar.

Honours even between two very closely matched sides.

Malmesbury will travel to Warminster Town on Saturday.

Malmesbury Team – 1 – Adam Clatworthy, 2 – Ant Brown, 3 – Ewen Kenny, 4 – Ashley Kendall, 5 – Neurin Jones, 6 – George Peare ©, 7 – Jamie Packer, 8 – Matty Jenkinsm, 9 – Nick Peare, 10 – Josh Hughes, 11 – Josh Russell, 12 – Ryan Collins, 14 – Kieran Jones, 15 – Martin Sinclair, 16 – Scott Reynolds