Manager Nigel Adkins says Josh Davison’s 87th-minute equaliser is testament to the striker’s hard work.
Five minutes after his introduction, Davison contrived with fellow substitute Corey Blackett-Taylor to notch a late leveller in SE7.
That came after another substitute, Sean Clare, had cancelled out Ronan Curtis’ early opener before Marcus Harness restored the visitors’ advantage 18 minutes from time.
“Two substitutions there again - Corey Blackett-Taylor, obviously we could only risk him for maybe 10, 15 minutes and you could see what he could go and do backing up what he did the other night,” explained the Charlton manager. “That explosive bit of dynamism to get past his full-back and Josh Davison to get in there.
“He’s earned his goal, he’s been magnificent since I’ve joined the football club,” added Adkins. “At the start of pre-season since he’s come back he’s been brilliant and he deserved that goal for his hard work.”
Asked on his assessment of the afternoon, Adkins reflected: “Well it’s a good point. I would have liked us to have got all three, obviously we got off to a poor start. We allowed the pitch to be too big. We talked about it. In our enthusiasm one of the players has jumped very, very early and just allowed them to play through and obviously the lad’s hit the ball. I think Macca [Craig MacGillivray] was thinking it was going to go over the bar and it’s just dipped in so within six minutes we’ve gone behind.
“We’ve had to show a bit of resilience there because we didn’t have a grip on the game, but after 15 minutes we changed the shape and I think that helped us a lot and we grew into the game better,” continued Adkins. “Second-half we got off to a great start, Sean Clare scoring a goal. I made a substitution there and he’s come on and from a set-piece it’s been pulled back and his composed finish was really good.
“In the second-half the atmosphere in the stadium was great,” he added. “The players have done really, really well. From a point of view of being very expansive we had the ball in their half of the pitch, we give it away and it was too easy for them to get to our goal and score. But, again, great resilience to come back.”