Tom talks - after the Marine game

It's possible that Blyth boss Tom Wade was actually looking forward to the peace and quiet of lying back in the dentist's chair to have a tooth extracted the day after his side's hurly-burly, event-packed 3-3 draw away to Marine the evening before.

Minutes after Marine had hit the post in the opening seconds the Spartans scored. The home side equalised before going into the break ahead. After the restart the floodlights failed causing play to be suspended. Fortunately one of the home crowd worked for a local energy supplier and there was a game on once more after 20 minutes. Maguire scored again to bring it to 2-2 before Marine again snatched the lead. In the dying minutes Michael Richardson hit a, rapidly becoming, trademark precision volley to level the game.

"It was quite a game," said Wade. "We really needed a win to keep track on for the playoffs which are starting to look a long way away. Having said that away to Marine on a Tuesday night a draw could be a great result. The lads did well and we deserved a point.

"After Marine hit the post early on, after a great bit of work actually, we could have gone on to be three up. They scored but we were trying to play on the ground all the time and that cost us their second. But we stuck at our task in the second half and pretty well dominated in the last 30 minutes and when we put Ash [Davis] on for more power we could have won it in added time.

"Marine impressed me. They turned us around several times with their centre forward and two wingers who were decent players. They've hit form recently and are desperate to avoid relegation and in that mood I can see them taking points from some top sides."