Coventry Sphinx 1-1 Rugby Town
Stuart Guest
Last season's United Counties League Premier Division South top two met for the second time at Step Four and shared the points at the Sphinx Industrial Supplies Arena.
Coventry Sphinx took the lead in the first half but were pegged back by Rugby Town early in the second. A red card left the visitors to play 25 minutes with ten men but they held on for a 1-1 draw with their goalkeeper relatively untroubled.
Joint managers John Woodward and Shaun Thomas made a handful of changes. Leo Wood played to the right of striker Matty Shipman, with Tyler Haddow on the left. Alex Lock and Jack Downes anchored the midfield behind Jac Redhead.
The defensive unit remained unchanged. Goalkeeper Keelan Fallows played behind a back four made up of Joe Pursey, Louis Guest, Will Edjenguele and Finlay Shorrock. Guest captained the side in his 300th Sphinx appearance.
Continuing on from a rousing second half in their previous outing at AFC Rushden & Diamonds, Sphinx made a lively start against their neighbours. But it was Fallows who was called into action first, getting down well to deny Rugby skipper Michael Taylor at close range.
With seven minutes played, Haddow threaded a pass through for Shipman. The striker got a shot away but was under sufficient pressure to make it a difficult one and he could only poke it into the arms of goalkeeper Paul Hathaway.
Haddow went closer himself three minutes later. A long free kick found him in the box and pulled it down beautifully before having his first effort blocked by a defender and sending an improvised second over the top.
Sphinx moved through the gears early on. Downes fired a shot wide from 20 yards, just in time for Rugby to arrive in the match as a serious attacking force.
The home team had a solid first quarter of an hour but David Kolodynski got himself into space on the right corner of the Sphinx box. He sliced his shot wide but the Valley enjoyed a good spell of pressure in the middle of the half.
Downes backed himself from outside the area again in the 26th minute, this time seeing his 25-yard shot screw wide with significant help from the wind that whipped around Sphinx Drive.
The home team made the breakthrough with 32 minutes played. An incisive attack on the right culminated in a beauty of a cross to the near post from Shipman. Haddow got across his marker, glanced a header past Hathaway and claimed his first Sphinx goal.
Sphinx controlled the rest of the half and were on top after the goal, but Taylor went closest with a header from a free kick that flashed wide of Fallows’ goal. The home team took a one-goal lead into the break but wouldn't hold on to it much longer.
The second half was defined by moments of chaos that might have redirected the outcome either way. Sphinx made the early running but Rugby equalised out of nowhere in the third minute of the half.
Jamie Melbourne's cross from the left caught the wind and swung high over the grasp of Fallows before dropping into the far corner of the Sphinx net to make it 1-1.
After levelling the score, Rugby mounted a period of sustained pressure, relieved intermittently by threatening Sphinx counter-attacks. One such break led to a key moment that changed the timbre of the game.
With 25 minutes remaining, Sphinx caught the Valley defensive line high and got in behind. Shipman was clipped by Liam Francis and the defender was shown his second yellow card of the game.
Rugby kept the eleven men of Sphinx honest with long balls into Taylor and Madundo Semahimbo but the remainder of the match looked like a team with a full complement against a team with ten men.
Sphinx used the man advantage to create a number of chances but nothing to test Hathaway in the Rugby goal. Five minutes from time, substitute Ashton Demulder fired over from 25 yards and, in terms of efforts on goal, that was that.
There was some frustration at missing out on a win against ten men but Sphinx didn't do enough with their attacking possession after the dismissal of Francis and didn't carve out many real opportunities to get Hathaway working in the Rugby goal.
Results elsewhere in the bottom six ensured that both teams could look at this as a point gained on those around them. Sphinx had the added bonus of preventing Rugby from closing the gap as they began a run of fixtures dominated by home games.
A visit to Corby Town will be followed by three home games in eight days against Shepshed Dynamo, Loughborough Dynamo and Harborough Town. Cambridge City come to Coventry on Saturday 16th March to make it four home matches on the bounce.
Sphinx team
Fallows, Pursey, Shorrock, J. Downes, Edjenguele, Guest, Wood (Castellano), Lock (L. Downes), Shipman, Redhead (Demulder), Haddow. Unused subs: Bryson, Whiteside