MARK Bower was left both disheartened and pleased with his side after they rescued a point with a 3-3 draw at Southport in the Vanarama National League North.

It was a thrilling contest over in Merseyside as Bradford threw away two leads to eventually finish up sharing the spoils.

Basement Avenue, who reduced the difference from the drop to 12 points, were eventful at each end of the pitch to leave Bower with mixed emotions once the final whistle blew.

He said: "Disappointed in the end to only get a point after being in front a couple of times.

"We scored some good goals today and I thought we looked a threat going forward.

"I am disappointed with the goals we have conceded again.

"We would have been delighted to go into the break a goal up.

"The long throw was their weapon, we defended it well until then and we just didn’t react to a flick on and the lad had a free header.

"I was really pleased with how we dealt with setbacks today that could have been a dent but the lads came out at half time to get ourselves in front.

"We get caught on the counter attack for the second and the third was a set play we only half cleared in our box and we are not strong enough to deal with it.

"But we kept going and scored a good goal and could have won it at the end."

Tom Clare came in for his first start in three matches and put in a faultless display leading the frontline.

Bower was delighted with his team in the attacking department and Clare's performance.

The Bradford boss said: "He (Clare) is an easy target for criticism at six foot, four, people expect certain things from you but it is not his game.

"So we played to his strengths a bit more by getting it into his feet. You saw his quality in the box, great finish and he deserved that.

"We have been playing with one centre forward with him and Oli (Johnson) both performing that role quite well.

"Oli made an impact off the bench with a great cross for Billy Priestley’s goal, showing his quality."

New signing Stelios Demetriou received a late red card after bringing down George Newell as he was bearing down on goal, Bower believes his left back made the correct choice.

He added: "It was one of those 50/50 ones, the way it has been going for us it was always not going to go in our favour.

"The lad would have gone through and probably scored and that would have been game over

"He took one for the team at that stage in the game, I think he made the right decision.

"It’s a shame that we will miss his experience for what should only be the one match."