It was a hard fought draw, but at the end of the game it felt like a defeat, I left the ground thanking God I wasn't born a Lincoln City supporters if this is the way they play football, it simple terms we were kicked off the park.

A Friday night out in Lincoln was a pleasant experience, some nice pubs and nice people, but a Saturday afternoon was a totally different experience, a nasty team of giants coached by some really snidey coaches to try and win games of football by using the dark arts.

Their late equaliser hurt not because of the dropped points, but because it seems that World Federation Wrestling won the day.

If we didn't know what style of football Lincoln played when the game kicked off, within a second we knew, the first touch was a two yard pass, the second touch flicked the ball up and the third hoofed it up in the air to land somewhere around our penalty spot.

The blueprint for the next 90 minutes was set, Lincoln pulled our shirts at every opportunity, they kicked us, pushed us, elbowed us and generally manhandled us.

To our credit we dug in and took everything they threw as us and then on the brink of half time came a shock, the ball fell to Welington 30 years out and he smashed it into the top corner to put us 1-0 up.

Poetic justice was done.

In the second half with a one goal lead we seemed to get the ball down more and play, we should have been 2-0 up and surely the game done and dusted but Leo Scienza's trademark curling effort hit one post and then went right along the line to hit the other post and then land in the arms of the relieved goalkeeper.

Usually our substitutions under Tonda Eckert have changed games in a good way, but not on this occasion, for the first 18 minutes of the second half Leo Scienza had started to get into the game, yet he was taken off and Sam Edozie came on, at the same time Cyle Larin came off and Divin Mubama came on it was a case of too much and too little, Edozie had his moments, but Mubama looked lost.

Another double change on 78 minutes was again baffling, Finn Azaz was getting the ball down and using it, but he went off for Lewis Dobbin and Welington came off for Ryan Manning.

We now lost a bit of shape and we knew it was going to be tough.

Lincoln pumped the ball down the middle and we were struggling to cope, Nathan Wood replaced Matsuki to try and combat this, but it only made us lose even more shape.

We needed fresh legs but Tonda got it badly wrong on this occasion, we were sitting back and rarely going forward and when we did Mubama could not seem to hold the ball up so the pressure was truly on.

On 87 minutes we paid the price, they broke quickly and crossed it straight away, their man was completely unmarked to head home from 2 yards.

At the end it felt like a defeat, but the reality was that we came through a difficult game, so the plus point is that we have played two tough away games in a matter od days and drawn both of them.

But there are a few worrying factors at the moment, truth is Divin Mubama doesn't seem to be getting to the pace of a game, both at Birmingham and again at Lincoln he looked lost, didn't seem to know what runs to make and worse still didn't seem to put in a shift, he drifted in and out of the game, when he got the ball he knew what to do, but when he didn't have it he didn't seem to know what to do.

But the real plus point was the way that James Ward-Prowse and Flynn Downes worked together in midfield, they rolled up their sleeves and grafted, they dug in and made sure we didn't get overrun, but even they can't block a ball that is 20 yards above them in the air.

So a disappointing result in the end, but it does make us 4 games unbeaten and now we have two home games this week to hopefully build on this.

As I said at the start everything about the Lincoln Squad was snidey, with their bench being just in front of the Saints fans sitting in the open temporary stand on the side getting vocal, one of their coaches responded, I think it was David Preece the goalkeeping coach according to their website.

That was very unprofessional and it got worse when they scored and he goaded the Saints supporters with several hand gestures etc, again very unprofessional, they were like Sunday League parks coaches.

Anyway onwards and upwards we have the start of a good run going, we now have to put our foot on the gas pedal.

All Photos Via Reuters

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