Manager Lee Attenborough was scathing about his team’s display saying that it was the ‘the worst performance of the season by a distance’.

There wouldn’t be many in the season’s best crowd who would disagree with that assessment, but despite the disappointment of a tame draw, the Nailers are still in the promotion play off places.

With top scorer Harry Draper now missing for at least two weeks, Attenborough brought in Andrew Buah on loan from Port Vale. Jerome Greaves and Jack Watson continued to be unavailable through injury.

In a largely uneventful first half the Nailers had few opportunities but did have a shot kicked off the line when Jonathan Wafula’s effort was launched to safety by a Borough defender.

Nailers’ skipper Jack Broadhead nodded a 42nd minute corner just wide, while Borough’s closest effort was a Tom Jamieson back header moments before the break.

The second half never rose to any great heights either and the patient crowd waited desperately for a spark of ingenuity that would set the game alight.

However, Scott Fenwick spurned a good chance for the visitors when he put his effort over the bar from Charlie Burden-Whittleton’s 53rd minute cross.

Kevin Bastos excited the crowd briefly when his 25-yard shot bounced off the Borough ‘keeper, but Liam Higton had time to collect the ball at the second attempt.

The visitors grabbed the lead when a goal mouth scramble led to Charlie Burdon-Whittleton forcing the ball over the line on 63 minutes, and the mood of the crowd fell flat again within minutes of Bastos’s earlier effort.

Debutant Andrew Buah curled a shot into the side netting in the 67th minute, but the Nailers looked devoid of ideas when it came to going forward.

Bastos put a header over the cross bar in the 75th minute when he might have hit the target, but while Belper laboured, Borough sensed a second goal and certain victory.

The Nailers looked destined for defeat but in the 95th minute substitute Nathaniel Crofts popped up to grab an equaliser when he prodded the ball in at the near post.

Belper must find a way of converting draws into wins or they are in danger of falling at the last hurdle and maybe missing out on a play off place as they did last year.

Belper Town: Preston, Rhodes (King 51), Keenan, Austin (Crofts 83), Broadhead, Evans, Bastos, Wood (Buah 45), Gordon (Warren 66), Wafula, Burrows. Unused sub: Whitehead.

Grimsby Borough: Higton, Jamieson, Adlard, Topliss, Sawyer, Wood, Richardson (York 61), Collins, Fenwick, Venney, Burden-Whittleton. (Drury 89). Unused subs: Lowe, Hallibone, Sarbutt.

Referee: Joshua Howell

Att: 766

Match Sponsor: Alan Benfield Electrical Contractors

Man of the Match: Curtis Burrows.