by Luke Cawdell

Gillingham manager Andy Hessenthaler felt his side should have been more ruthless in front of goal on Saturday.

Hessenthaler said: "In the first half we passed the ball well and got into some really good opportunities but we were reluctant to have that final shot.

"On delaying it, it gave them chance to defend it. That's the main criticism, we got into the final third and we have to take our opportunities by shooting. That will come and there are things to work on."

The Gills boss also thought his team were hampered by nerves early on.

"That was understandable as we have a couple of players in there making their debuts," he said.

Gillingham were in the end indebted to striker Adebayo Akinfenwa for levelling the scores.

The striker said: "I'm always happy to be scoring goals and strikers are judged on their goals. I'm a bit disappointed with the result as I thought we were the better team out there and we should have got all three points.

"We'll take the positives and just look forward to Tuesday now."