What a waste! We should have won that one easily, although to be fair I was a little worried, with a limping goalkeeper at the end, that we might contrive to not even get a point!

I suppose the over-riding feeling is one of mixed emotions. It was hard to know how to feel after the first half. We’d played terrifically well, apart from a lull after about a quarter of an hour, and the game really ought to have been over. However, we missed chance after chance, Tony McMillan made some fine saves in Southport’s goal, and we went in level.

Danny Wright’s early goal ought to have settled things down; Johnny Hunt did well to intercept and feed him in and he took it with aplomb. Danny Alfei gave the ball away sloppily though – just as I was tweeting that in the blustery conditions this wasn’t a clean sheet sort of night!-and Southport capitalised.

After that we had a little wobble – Simon Grand ought to have punished us with a free header  – but once we got our rhythm going again we penned Southport in.

I was also feeling confused about Hunt’s role. I’m a long-standing publicly-stated Hunt fan, and when he plays in this advanced left-sided position in attack he can use his pace and crossing ability to good effect. He certainly did that early on in the match, and set up a few decent chances. However, I wouldn’t fancy him as much when the chances fall to him, and he missed a couple of one-on-ones, not to mention hitting the post from close range with his last touch before he was subbed.

When the excellent Danny Wright, one-on-one with the keeper, couldn’t take a good early Rushton cross in his stride 50 seconds after the break, I feared we would be in for a second half of frustration. Sadly, I was right.

We didn’t get the same momentum going after the break, I think partly because the wind was now with us but also because Liam Watson looked to have got at his midfield and told them not to sit so deep. As a result there was less space in their half after the break, and they could play a higher back line because if we knocked it over the top it was more likely to run through to their keeper.

Still, when Joe Clarke put us ahead with 20 minutes left after some excellent work by Adrian Cieslewicz, I thought we’d hit the killer blow. Except there weren’t 20 minutes left, and things were about to get weird. Mayebi weird.

He’d already had to have treatment after he twisted his ankle making a clearance, and his body language then had been that of a man who thought he couldn’t carry on. No sooner had the celebrations for Clarke’s goal died down than attention turned to the other end, where Mayebi was on the deck.

Almost immediately he was throwing his gloves at Chris Westwood – I’m not one for reading subtle body language signs, but this didn’t seemt he action of a man expecting to stay on. However, after 6 minutes of treatment and with no keeper on the bench to replace him, he was still out there, limping around horribly and offering an obvious target for Southport.

They got their equaliser in appropriately odd circumstances: Chris Westwood seemed to have dealt with Shaun Whalley well, then failed to make a decisive challenge, forcing Mayebi to push the ball behind. From the corner Mayebi failed to deal with exactly the sort of ball you ought to put into the crowd to test an injured keeper, and the ball was slammed in.

After that we huffed and puffed, but couldn’t quite manage to threaten as we did in the first half, while a tremendous shot at the other end from a ahlf-cleared corner could easily have ended up in the net.

Frustrating? Yes, but it could have been worse. Still, playing “Euphoria” on the PA at the end seemed a little inappropriate.

Wrexham (4-3-3): Mayebi; Alfei, Westwood, Riley, Ashton; Clarke, Keates, Harris; Rushton (Morrell 83), D Wright, Hunt (Cieslewicz 60)

Miscellaneous: 11 of our last 13 goals against Southport have come after the 43rd minute.