Andy Hessenthaler believed the 0-0 draw against Oxford in League 2 at Priestfield on Saturday was fair and that the wind was the only winner.

The weather conditions made life tough for the Gills players and, despite ramping up the pressure in the latter stages, the winner never came.

Hessenthaler said: “We are a bit disappointed, because you want to win your home games, but we didn’t really get going, especially in the first half.

“For me, and I’m sure Chris Wilder (Oxford manager) will say the same, there was only one real winner out there and that was the wind. I didn’t realise just how bad it was until I got out there.

“In those conditions it’s very difficult to play and it was never going to be pretty. Players were going to make mistakes because of the wind and in the end it was a fair result.

“When you go back inside and see how the other fixtures finished, with a lot of draws, we’ve popped up a place. I’m a little bit disappointed as maybe we could have popped up a little further.

“We got better in the second half and made changes with fresher legs and that helped us. We probably had our best spell in the first five minutes of the game and the last 10.”

The Gills came close to winning it late on, with Cody McDonald sending a header against the bar, and Hessenthaler revealed that the striker nearly didn’t play.

He missed training on Friday because of a sickness and diarrhea bug.

“On Thursday night he had the paramedics at his house,” said the Gills boss.

“We didn’t pick our team until lunchtime because there was concern about Cody, but he wanted to play. You could see he was a little fatigued, but credit to him he wanted to get out there and give it a go.

“You want your goalscorer on there and he nearly got it with a header.”