Crewe Alex 2 Ipswich Town 2

CREWE survived a secondhalf barrage to claim a point against Premiership hopefuls Ipswich Town.

Dean Ashton's first-half double raised hopes of both an upset and a maiden fourth straight win at Championship level, last Saturday.

But it was little surprise to see the Tractor Boys emerge with renewed vigour and punish defensive blunders once again for a share of the spoils.

According to Ipswich boss Joe Royle, his side were unlucky not to claim all three.

No way though, that old clich - a game half of two halves summed it up perfectly.

Under strength Crewe played some stellar stuff in the first 45 and came close to going further in front by the break.

David Vaughan was in for the injured Mark Rivers while 18- year-old Paul Bignot made his full home debut after Jon Otsemobor failed a late fitness test.

And the Alex made a confident start, built upon after the visitors missed two virtual sitters within the first 15 minutes.

First of all, highly rated Darren Bent burst through onto Shefki Kuqi's pass only to blast wide of the post while the provider sent a simple header the same way.

Crewe seized on the initiative and Ashton made the most of it with a quick fire double. Vaughan's quality ball released him down the left and Deano cut in before squeezing the ball past Kelvin Davis on his near post on 25 minutes.

Three minutes later and Ashton took one touch of Lunt's assist before dispatching it into the far corner for his 17th of the season.

Some quality football followed and only some rough stuff, poor refereeing and good keeping from Davis kept Crewe at bay.

Ashton made the keeper work with another angled drive from the left while acrobatics denied Lunt's free-kick.

Steve Jones was constantly hacked down on the assault and Jason De Vos may have been fortunate to only see yellow on one such occasion late on.

There was a feeling Crewe might pay for not making even more of that dizzy spell and as expected, the visitors were in charge from the second-half whistle.

In inspirational form of late, Ince had his work cut out with a superb save to deny Ian Westlake and later producing a double parry to thwart Bent from close range; Ipswich were back in it from the resulting corner.

Kuqi flicked the flag kick on and the Alex defence was all over the place when Naylor disappointingly buried the loose ball.

It intensified the barrage even more and Bent made up for his earlier howlers, hooking another loose ball over his head and into the net on 59 minutes.

While Vaughan hacked Westlake's deflected effort off the line and Miller wasted another decent opening, Crewe also had chances to take three points late on.

The inspirational Welshman almost set up Ashton's hat-trick with number 18 only prevented by Fabian Wilnis' sliding block and Neil Sorvel blasted a promising opening over the bar at the death.

Most would have taken that result two hours earlier, Crewe remain on the up.

Crewe: Ince, Bignot, Moses, Foster, McCready (Walker 68), Lunt, Sorvel, Cochrane, Vaughan, Ashton, S Jones. Subs not used: Williams, Bell, Varney, White.

Attendance - 7,236.

Guardian man-of-the-match - Dean Ashton: Superb finishing and hard work at both ends of the pitch.