Guiseley 0, Rushall Olympic 0

GUISELEY boss Mark Bower admitted that his side were ‘going to have to do it the hard way’ after they failed to finish off a side 33 places lower down the football pyramid at Nethermoor.

Rushall Olympic earned their FA Trophy third qualifying round replay with some solid defending and a man-of-the-match display from keeper Cameron Belford. The sides will meet again at Dales Lane tomorrow.

The Pics had a lot of defending to do as Guiseley dominated the first-half chance count, with Alex Johnson making the most of a rare start as he comes back from a long injury absence.

The visitors’ centre-back pairing of Aaron Brown and Michael Tolley were commanding and, when the Lions did force openings, Belford proved unbeatable on the day.

The longer the game went on the more the Pics began to believe in themselves and they looked for an unlikely winner on the counter-attack.

They came close to snatching one, with Steve Drench having to make saves to deny Aaron Williams and Carl Palmer.

Guiseley should have put the tie to bed in the final stages but they had a very strong penalty shout turned down when Johnson appeared to be tugged back by Brown, and when substitute Nicky Boshell had the ball in the net late on the strike was ruled out for a handball offence.

Bower said: “It was very frustrating. In the first half we moved the ball about well but they sat deep and it was difficult to create chances, but we did and we should have been in front.

“We had more than enough chances – good chances – to score and if you take one of them I think we go on to win the game comfortably. But we didn’t and that’s credit to Rushall.

“They sat even deeper in the second half and looked to hit us on the break, and two or three could have ended in the back of our net.

"But AJ got in behind them and was hauled back when he was clean through I thought that should have been a penalty and a red card but the ref waved play on.

“We are going to have to do it the hard way now and go there to get through. We need to put our chances away to win the replay.”