By Mark Berry March Town 1 Whitton United 1 MARCH Town United produced a solid performance at home to Whitton United on Saturday and came away with a valuable point. New Hares manager Paul Swannell was in charge of his first home game and said: The lads

By Mark Berry

March Town 1 Whitton United 1

MARCH Town United produced a solid performance at home to Whitton United on Saturday and came away with a valuable point.

New Hares manager Paul Swannell was in charge of his first home game and said: "The lads played as well as they have done all season."

This week, Ely City have completed the signing of March defender Paul Cousins, and Luke Pepper has moved to rivals Wisbech Town. But Swannell has introduced new faces in the squad and there could be more soon.

He said: "I was prepared to lose Paul and Luke so I wasted no time in getting new players in. I have also been talking to a forward this week who has expressed an interest in joining March."

As a relatively new side, March took some time to settle on Saturday and Whitton proved to be the better side in the first 10 minutes.

However, the best chance to open the scoring fell to March striker Ashley Brand on 15 minutes. With the visitors' appealing for offside, he stole in and forced Whitton keeper Lawrence Leggett in to a smart save, before Brand pushed his second shot wide.

March slowly began to stamp their influence on the game and they were rewarded with the opening goal on the half-hour.

Harry Roe's cross-field ball was picked up by Shaun Coulson and his dangerous cross was turned in to his own net by defender Neil Shade.

The game quickly opened up and within a minute March keeper Lee Smith produced a fine save from a point-blank header.

Hares forward Jason Dean produced one of his best performances for the club and was denied by Leggett just two minutes later.

However, he should have scored soon after when Brand charged down Leggett's clearance and squared the ball in to the box, only to see Dean slice his shot wide.

Lee Smith was called upon again six minutes before the break when his save denied Whitton an equaliser. There were fewer clear-cut chances in the second half but Whitton levelled the scores on 68 minutes when a deep cross from the right was turned in at the far post.

Swannell said: "I was pleased with our performance. Lee Smith kept us in the game at times and I thought that Jason Dean was outstanding up front.