Darren Moore hails ‘vital point’ after late Port Vale fightback against Grimsby

Port Vale boss Darren Moore praised his promotion-chasing side for coming from two goals down to salvage a “vital point” against Grimsby.

Danny Rose’s brace, which included a penalty, had the visitors two up, but Lorent Toll pulled one back before Jesse Debrah scored a dramatic equaliser five minutes into added time at Vale Park.

The draw left Vale second, a point behind leaders Doncaster and two ahead of Bradford in third.

Moore said: “We’ve given away two goals today which are both through lapses in concentration.

“We switched off for the first one and the second one we let the runner get on the other side of us.

“But the endeavour, the commitment, the drive by the players to salvage something with a last-gasp goal… We just put some balls in the box and both goals came from that and we’ve managed to salvage a vital point.

“Credit to Jesse and credit to the team. The passion they have shown is what the supporters want. That was a memorable goal for us.

“Every goal and every point counts. When you look at League Two this season, it’s the most contested League Two for a lot of seasons.

“It ebbs and flows every week. It looks like it will go right down to the last game.

“What we’re doing is focusing on ourselves. That’s all that we can do.”

Grimsby boss David Artell hit out at the officials, claiming Toll’s effort should have been ruled out for offside.

Artell’s side hung on to their play-off spot by a point after results elsewhere went their way.

“When you come so close to winning the game it’s always bitterly disappointing,” said Artell.

“I thought we deserved to win. We were the better team.

“The referee has bottled a red card in the first half when one of our lads is almost decapitated and their first goal was offside, so two big decisions go against you.

“It’s another point. If you’d have said to us with two games to go it would be in our hands still then great.

“It would have been better with three points today. But we’ve taken four points off the team with the biggest budget in the league.

“They’re celebrating at the end, quite rightly, and I don’t want it to sound like sour grapes, but it’s massive and it is for their cause.

“But it shows how far we’ve come when we come to a team at the top of the league and they celebrate like that.

“They’ve got a Championship manager, players on fortunes and we’ve taken four points off them.”