A superb second half performance earned the Angels a very pleasing point against a strong Maidenhead United side at York Road on Tuesday evening.

Alan Dunne reflected on the evening: “I’ve told the boys how proud I am of them. Maidenhead are a million miles away from where we are as a football club. Their fitness, the size of the club, they were six wins out of seven going into tonight. You can see their physicality, they have players that have played National League or above. After we went a goal down, the reaction was brilliant, we grew into the game and, in the second half, we found a gear that I didn’t know we had, they demonstrated that we are getting fitter, we are getting better and, if anything, I’m disappointed that we didn’t come away with the three points.”

Dunney made two changes from the side that lost to Horsham on Saturday with Alfie Allen returning from injury and Matty Warren taking the places of Scott Wagstaff and Marcus Sablier who dropped to the bench.

Maidenhead made a bright start and after an early effort from Josh Popoola, the ex-Angel loanee delivered a cross to the far post to Manny Onariase who couldn’t direct his header on goal.

With echoes of Saturday, the Angels nearly took the lead on 18 minutes, after a Jordan Higgs free kick was touched over by the home goalkeeper Van Stappershoef. The resultant corner saw a glancing header from Brody Peart  come back off the post into the grateful arms of the goalkeeper with Angels claims that the ball had crossed the line waved away.

Three minutes later, it was the home side’s turn to strike the woodwork as Onariase’s header hit the bar. Popoola was proving a constant menace with a 22nd minute shot from the left turned away by Jacob Adams.

Maidenhead continued to hold the momentum with Nazir Bakrin putting his body on the line to deny an effort from Liam Dulson and Adams saved well from a Cory Andrews header that was headed for the bottom corner.

Van Stappershoef produced a super stop from a Bailey Akehurst free kick before the Angels resistance was broken in the second minute of added time as Popoola found the bottom corner from around 25 yards.

Tonbridge withstood early second half pressure before Higgs’ corner eluded the keeper to find Bakrin, who climbed highest to head home on 63 minutes and spark wild celebrations involving players and the travelling support.

As confidence grew following the equaliser, Akehurst had a close range opportunity that cleared the bar and largely controlled the game going into seven minutes of added time in which the best chance at either end saw Arthur Penney’s header go wide.

Dunney concluded: “You have to match these teams, and once you have sustained that and have gone toe-to-toe with them, we started to believe. Maidenhead have top players with quality all over the pitch, we have honest players that will run through brick walls. We might not be the most talented but I don’t think I’ve been more proud of a team as I am tonight.”