Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink hails Burton’s second-half fightback

Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink praised his team for abandoning their “PlayStation” football of the first half as they hit back to draw 1-1 with Cheltenham.

Daniel Jebbison’s eighth goal of the season cancelled out Callum Wright’s opener to rescue a point for the visitors.

“We didn’t get close to them in the first half,” Hasselbaink said. “We’re a side that likes to compete and we didn’t.

“We had to find a solution and be honest. They were trying to play PlayStation football and in reality it doesn’t work like that.

“We needed a reaction in the second half as they’d put us under pressure. We needed a little more calmness.

“We’re a very young side, but they’re honest and they knew they hadn’t given enough in the first half.

“In the second half we were the better team and we could’ve won it.”

The home side dominated most of the first half and deservedly took the lead through Wright’s sweetly-stuck volley in the 21st minute.

They had already seen Southampton loanee Dan Nlundulu hit the bar four minutes into his debut before Wright thumped home from the edge of the box after Chris Hussey’s cross was headed clear by John Brayford.

Nlundulu saw another effect deflected wide, Hussey’s cross bounced off the bar and Alfie May was denied by the legs of goalkeeper Ben Garratt all before half-time.

But Burton showed a marked improvement after the break and the levelled in the 51st minute when Jacob Maddox’s low cross from the right was touched in by 18-year-old Sheffield United loanee Jebbison.

Garratt parried a powerful effort from Nlundulu, but Conor Shaughnessy nearly won it for the Brewers with a glancing header from Tom Hamer’s long throw in the 67th minute.

Cheltenham manager Michael Duff felt his side should have been out of side by half-time.

“We did enough to win the game in the first half alone,” he said.

“They’ve had one shot in the 46th minute, but, other than that, we had a lot of chances, one-on-ones, we’ve hit the crossbar twice.

“We should have had a penalty (for a foul on Sean Long) and, to give them credit, some of the blocks were unbelievable, putting their bodies on the line.

“I’ve just seen two or three of them back and you have to give them credit for that. It’s their job, but not every team does it.

“Second half, they changed a little bit and we couldn’t quite get the momentum back. We did in the last 10 minutes after tweaking a couple of things, stemming their flow and growing back into the game.

“Even in the last 10 minutes there are four or five opportunities where it could have dropped to one of our players in the box, but it seemed to keep dropping to them. We’ll take the positives, take the point and move on.”