Steve Morison hoping to build on Sutton draw

Sutton’s new manager Steve Morison is hoping his players can take confidence from their performance after his first match in charge ended in a 2-2 draw against Barrow.

The match at Gander Green Lane seemed to be going to form as the promotion-chasing visitors controlled the first half and went ahead through Ben Whitfield’s opener.

However, United struck back with goals either side of half-time from Harry Beautyman that threatened just a fourth league win of the season for the team who began Saturday bottom of League Two.

Morison, whose side remain six points off safety, said: “You’ve got to believe in yourselves, you’ve got to be confident.

“I’m obviously asking them to do a couple of things differently, but the fundamentals in football are you run, you work hard and I’m just trying to ask them to be brave on the ball.

“Obviously, I thought they did it for large parts, they mixed it up, but you’ve just got to believe.

“The question is: ‘Do you believe you can do it?’

“I didn’t say those exact words at half-time, but they came out and had an extra spring in their step.

“We tried to play in a little bit of a different style, we kept the ball quite well but just didn’t quite have that final-third impetus, which in the second half we did.

“We put Barrow on the back foot and they had to make a double change to stop our flow.”

Barrow led after 35 minutes when Whitfield turned in Elliot Newby’s low ball from close range, but Beautyman made the most of some hesitant defending to equalise for Sutton before half-time.

Beautyman then completed the turnaround with a header from Joe Kizzi’s cross before Niall Canavan ensured a share of the spoils by finishing off a goalmouth scramble.

Barrow boss Pete Wild said: “We felt really frustrated because we were in complete control of the game, we should go 2-0 up, after we’d gone 1-0 up, with Jamie Proctor.

“The game’s then dead and buried and we enjoy the game, but from something out of nothing, the goal they get gives them something to hang on to.

“If there’s one frustrating point of today’s game, it’s giving them something to hang on to because large parts of that game were really good from us.

“We talked about needing to match their intensity and I felt we did that for 90 minutes.

“I think the biggest thing to take from today is the character that we’ve shown.

“When you don’t have good days, it’s important that good teams find a way to at least get a point.

“We’ve gifted Sutton two goals, but we’ve found a way to come away with a positive result.”