The Whites were far from their best once again as they escaped with a point from their home encounter with neighbours Chippenham Town Youth.
The visitors dominated the midfield battle throughout thanks to a muscular, committed performance and carved out a series of chances for their impressive lone striker in the opening half. Colts were fortunate that he only managed to take one of them, with some alert goalkeeping from Max and a miraculous clearance off the line from Bradley limiting the damage to a single goal.
The bright performances of debutants Liam F and Sam were two of the positives to take from an otherwise scruffy, disjoined display from the Colts and the latter almost equalised with the hosts’ only clear chance on the first period on the stroke of half-time.
A change in formation at the interval helped beef up the midfield and stem the flow towards the Colts’ goal and the second half proved far more even. The leveller arrived when Sam found space on the right and crossed for Brandon M to superbly head home a confidence-boosting first goal of an injury-ravaged season.
A fine move involving Callum, Tom and Sam again almost led to a second soon afterwards, with George just unable to squeeze the ball home at the far post. Toby tried his luck from distance a couple of times and, like Luke VDB, posed a threat when he got forward on the left.
Liam B dropped into a defensive midfield role and made several telling challenges during a typically energetic performance. Brandon H used the ball sensibly in attack and tested the Chippenham defence with a couple of crosses from the left.
A more solid collective defensive effort from the whole team kept a hardworking Chippenham squad at bay as the game became an untidy, aerial battle for long spells, although it took a terrific last-ditch effort from first Tom and then Max to deny the away side what looked certain to be a late winner.
A draw was the most the Colts deserved on the day, though, and they will look to rediscover their touch when they return to action after half-term.