CHIPPENHAM Town manager Mark Collier was left feeling frustrated as his side were not able to pick up the three points in National League South he felt they deserved in their 1-1 drew at home to Hemel Hempstead Town.

Despite the Bluebirds dominating large parts of the first period, Jordan Parkes gave the visitors a surprise lead on the half-hour mark courtesy of a well-taken counter attacking goal.

Nick McCootie equalised for the home side 10 minutes into the second period, however, Chippenham could not find a winning goal and were forced to settle for a point.

Collier felt his side outplayed their guests and produced some of the best build-up play he had seen all season – only good goalkeeping and a lack of cutting edge in front of goal cost Chippenham all three points, according to the Town chief.

Collier said: “It was two points dropped because the performance warranted all three.

“We outplayed them for long periods of the game – I don’t know what the stats were, but we had numerous corners and five or six absolutely golden chances.

“Our approach-play and movement was absolutely top-drawer. Unfortunately, the end product just didn’t come for us.

“We missed a couple of golden chances, their goalkeeper made a couple of decent saves and we were dominant throughout. Overall, I’m absolutely disappointed with the result, but almost overjoyed with the performance because it was right up there.

“We pushed right up the pitch, we got crosses into the box – the missing ingredient was the most vital thing and that was the goal that our play warranted.”

Establishing themselves at National League South level has been a priority for Collier this season and he felt that his side produced a performance that was well worthy of a side at that level.

Chippenham stayed in 11th in the table after Saturday’s draw, but Collier said they will only achieve positive results if they can consistently churn out similar performances in their remaining fixtures.

He said: “Today was a performance of a very good National League South team.

“We had a very disappointed dressing room because the players know that we’ve played particularly well.

“We were undone by a counter-attacking goal, so that was disappointing, and then Hemel just sat in and waited to play on the break.

“Their manager will be overjoyed to get a point because they under-performed, and we performed to a level that will only ever bring us positive results.

“There’s no doom and gloom from me because that’s as good a performance as we’ve produced for the past few weeks and we’ve had some good ones of late.”