DARREN Perrin admitted he was fearing a 'cricket score' when his severely-weakened Melksham side slipped 2-0 behind inside the first 10 minutes at Willand Rovers on Saturday, only to see depleted Town battle back for a point.

The Toolstation League Premier Division champions were missing an astonishing 23 players across their three senior teams at the weekend as injuries, holidays, work commitments and a stag do in Nottingham took a heavy toll on resources at The Conigre.

Lewis Tasker's early brace looked likely to make a difficult day a whole lot worse for the Wiltshire travellers, but Ryan Bennett pulled one back and an own goal - despite the claims of Mike Perrot - drew them level before half time.

In the end, Perrin was slightly disappointed not to return home with all three points, although he conceded he would have been satisfied with a draw beforehand, given the paucity of options available to him.

"I've never seen anything quite like it in management,'' said the manager.

"We had 23 players unavailable across the teams for a whole host of reasons and then we were 2-0 behind after nine minutes.

"Myself and Killer (Mike Kilgour, assistant) were asking the referee to blow up because I was fearing a cricket score at that point.

"But all credit to the players. They showed incredible resolve and resilience to get themselves back into it before half time.

"In fact, in the second half we could have won it because we had three or four unbelievable chances in the final quarter of an hour.''

Perrin hopes resources will be partially, if not fully, restored for Saturday's trip to Bridport and a Monday evening home appointment with Shepton Mallet.

But he added: " That the pleasing thing about the weekend. We know that within the club there is this depth and these players who can come in and do a job for us. We had four U18s playing (against Willand) and they did well, but last week was ridiculous really.''