A storming second-half display saw Buxton earn a deserved point from their visit to Clayborn but Liversedge played their full part in a game worthy of a meeting between the top two sides.

The Derbyshire outfit remain at the summit of the Northern Counties East Premier Division but Nicky Law's men know they will have to maintain their own high standards to stay out in front.

Second-placed Sedge dominated the first half, their energy and industry

preventing the visitors playing to their potential. The reverse was true after the break as Buxton turned the tables, the screw and the game.

"I thought we were excellent in the second half and probably should have gone on to get all three points," said Buxton's former Bantams boss Law.

"But I told the lads that they can't play for only 45 minutes and expect to win games. It doesn't happen like that and Liversedge were certainly up for it. Their keeper made three or four great saves and they defended very well.

"We have them to play at home yet and I have seen enough to know that will be just as hard and that they will be up there at the end of the season.

"Liversedge are one of the best sides we have played this season. Some of their players are as good as I have seen at this level."

The home side pushed right from the start and Jon Borland fired over in the sixth minute. But his appearance was brief as the Sedge skipper and midfield dynamo pulled a hamstring in the 17th minute and was substituted soon after.

There were some good attempts from Buxton but home keeper Kyle Sutcliffe was very composed in front of 200-odd taunting Buxton supporters. The lion's share of the action was at the other end.

In what was a great advert for non-league soccer in general, the passing was crisp and sure and the movement - both on and off the ball - was fluent and unstinting.

Sedge took the lead just three minutes before half-time following a move down the left flank. Danny Lowe and Paul Walker, who came on for Borland, were involved and the ball was squeezed through to Gareth Hamlet, who fired a shot past the diving Scott Hartley.

They could have been two up had Buxton keeper Hartley not held on to a Walker shot in the last minute of the half and tipped an Asif Hussain cross over his bar in stoppage time.

Buxton almost had the Sedge goal under siege in the second half as the home side were left to rely on the occasional counter-attack. Right back Stacy Gott headed off the line on one occasion that Sutcliffe was beaten.

Despite having the upper hand, the visitors had to wait until the 83rd minute to pull themselves level. Two throw-ins saw Buxton encroaching down the left wing and, when the final ball came in, Alvyn Riley hammered it into the bottom corner.

Sedge boss Eugene Lacy said: "Before the game, if we were offered a point apiece we would probably have said 'yes'. At half-time I wouldn't have and at full time I dare say Nicky Law wouldn't have.

"In the first half we were much the better side but in the second half we got battered. The positive we can take out of it is that this time last year we would have lost; we would have collapsed under that pressure.

"We are a much more resilient side now as we have come of age. Buxton are a very experienced, very good side and I have to be happy with a draw. But they knew we were right behind them in the table and they lifted their game because of that. I have watched them before and they were nowhere near as good as they were here."