Dunston travelled to Brighouse Town for their opening game of the Pitching-In Northern Premier East Division. The visitors left with a point and a clean sheet and maybe disappointed not to have taken all three points.

Chris Swailes was without the services of Terry Galbraith, out due to an ankle injury, Michael Hall serving a three game suspension and Mechack Kanda who was unavailable.

In a game of minimal clear cut chances for either side, it was a War of attrition for 90 minutes. Dunston seemed to be more in control of the game however both sides rarely produced much of note in the final 3rd of the pitch.

Brighouse thought they’d opened the scoring after ten minutes, against the run of play and with their first real attack of the game, Dan Capewell was dispossessed in the box and with an option out wide the hosts had the ball in the back of the net, only for the assistant referee to rule the Brighouse player off-side.

Dunston’s best chance came 5 minutes later through Lee Mason; spotting the keeper off his line, the forward chipped his goal bound effort over the keeper, only for a defender to scramble back and clear the ball off the line.

Jake Stafford volleyed an effort over the bar following some good pressure from Jack Elliott, Phil Turnbull and Lee Mason. Turnbull’s vision in the middle of the park was asking questions of the Brighouse defence, but the hosts seemed capable of preventing the wide players from creating goal scoring opportunities.

Jack Elliott tried his luck with a curling effort, his shot missing it’s target as the Brighouse keeper watched it sail over.

Dunston had Liam Connell to thank before half time, a dangerous  free kick whipped in from the edge of the box, evading the heads of the Dunston defence, the keeper with a fine reaction save to prevent Brighouse from taking the lead.

Michael Pearson’s effort on target was parried by Brighouse keeper Brett Souter, however there was no follow up as the game remained level.

Chances in the second half were scarce, on the balance of play, both sides seemed to lack a killer instinct in front of goal and a scoreless draw seemed a fair result for both sides.

Dunston UTS Manager Chris Swailes gave his thoughts after the game:

“It was a hard fought point if I’m honest. I’m delighted to have kept a clean sheet on the first game, it’s a hard place to come to, as we’ve known from the past”.

“I’m pleased to have got a point but there’s a hinge of disappointment, that we didn’t take all three points”.

On going into the game with key players missing and his selections for the game, Swaz said

“We’ve got some good options, we played different systems throughout pre-season and we chose to play a different system today which I thought suited the players.”

“I thought we dictated the game, we had the better chances, we had had most of the ball but we just didn’t create those opportunities. We were rueful in front of goal, Mason had a good chance early doors, Pearson had a chance, Capewell had a header, we could’ve done a lot better in front of goal, but I’ll take a point and move onto Tuesday night against Shildon”.