Tom Ward marked his debut for King's Lynn Town by heading home the equaliser as they extended their unbeaten run in the Evo-Stik Southern League Premier Division to seven games.

In what proved to be a scrappy affair at Latimer Park, the Linnets fell behind to a fine Aaron O'Connor strike in the second half.

But they responded within five minutes when Ward rose highest at the far post to head home after some fine work from Lee Stevenson.

Overall, the equaliser was well-deserved and Linnets boss Gary Setchell felt the final outcome was about right.

'On the overall state of play, I think a draw was a fair result,' Setchell said. 'I thought we had the better passages of play. Kettering have a lot of good individuals and you could see that from the goal from Aaron O'Connor, it was an unbelievable hit. But I think we played more as a team and the passages of play that did go on, the good football when we tried to get it wide, I thought that came from us.

'When you go 1-0 down at Kettering and their fans start rocking, that's the time when we might have folded.

'But we are on an unbelievable run and we are proving we are hard to beat and the character the boys showed to get back in the game after a bit of magic by Lee and a good header from Wardy, who I thought was fantastic on his debut, was great to see. I felt we were more likely to win it towards the end.'

There was little to write home about during a poor first half as both teams struggled. Ward lobbed an effort over and then headed off target for the Linnets and they should have done better than just win a free-kick on the edge of the area after they broke with four against one on the counter-attack at one stage.

Rene Howe fired over with Kettering's best chance of the opening period but it was the hosts who took the lead with a moment of magic on 63 minutes. The game had lacked any sort of quality but it was there in abundance as Nathan Hicks' ball into the area dropped for O'Connor who hammered his volley into the net off the underside of the crossbar.

But the Linnets' response was swift and it was Stevenson who unlocked the door with a perfect cross from the left and Ward made no mistake with a firm header at the far post.

Kettering (3-4-3): Snedker; Mulligan, Solkhon, Langdon; Hicks, Hornby (Kelly 76), Canavan, Brighton; Carvalho (Wilson 83), Howe, O'Connor (Barnes-Homer, 71 mins). Subs not used: Malone, White.

King's Lynn (3-5-2): Street; Gaughran, Ward, Young; Fryatt (Mettam 67), Clunan, Stevenson, McWilliams (Smith 60), Warburton; Hilliard (Hawkins, 76), Revan. Subs not used: Zielonka, Emmington.

Ref: Sarah Garratt, Att: 656.