ALTON have played their 'get out of jail free' card twice this season. To mix metaphors, this was a game where they found the snake instead of the ladder.

From a promising start at Anstey Park on Saturday, their performance drifted into mediocrity and then was raised again in a final flourish as they attemped to rescue a game where a draw may have been acceptable to both sides.

Alton started well, winning a lineout and driving the visitors back from the ensuing maul almost to their own goal-line. From there, a series of lineouts and scrums in the Vandals' 22 led to an attacking scrum from which a back-row move gave flanker Leon Planteur open space to score, but the chance went begging when the ball was dropped.

From the resulting scrum, Alton won the ball against the head and a snap drop-goal attempt from fly-half Tony Watson from wide out on the left drifted wide.

When these sides meet, it tends to be a battle between Alton's superior forward technique and the better handling ability of the Walton-based team. So it proved again as a series of slick interpassing moves took Vandals close to the try-line, only for the final pass to go astray.

But this gave the visitors heart and two missed tackles on halfway forced Alton on the retreat and unable to resist the Vandals' momentum, the right winger finishing off the move by outflanking the cover. With the conversion successful, Vandals led 7-0 after 12 minutes.

A deadlock followed, with a series of midfield penalties being awarded to both sides. Watson missed the only attempt at goal in this series.

By now, both sides were showing signs of fatigue, having had no match practice for a fortnight, and mistakes were commonplace. Dropped balls in contact, mistiming of three-quarter moves and reluctance of the tackler to release the ball meant that the early flow of the play petered out.

Then Vandals won a lineout on the Alton 22 line and from a rehearsed move involving forwards and backs using quick ball, they broke the Alton defence to score wide out, thus taking a 12-0 lead into half-time.

Alton, with some changes to the forwards, began the second half with renewed vigour and, after 12 minutes, scrum-half Gareth Evans dived over from close range after a series of scrums and penalties.

The Alton lineout was firing on most of their cylinders, with Winston Carter showing that, pound for pound, he is the most agile and aggressive player in the side.

Alton tried to raise their game another notch with 20 minutes to go and an excellent three-quarter move put Vandals' line under pressure again. As Alton crossed the line, Tony Hopkin reached one-handed to place the ball, but with such force that it immediately bounced up, causing the referee to say the ball had been dropped.

Time was running out for Alton. They still varied the attacking lines, sometimes using the forwards, sometimes the backs, and letting Vandals give away the penalties.

Then controversy in the dying seconds. A Vandals defensive five-metre scrum was disrupted and when the pass went back over the goal-line, scrum-half Evans 'scored' only to hear the referee say that the ball had been touched down by the defence (unlikely as it had been knocked on) and instead of an attacking five-metre scrum being awarded, he gave a 22m dropout. From the kick, the ball was thumped unceremoniously downfield and at the next breakdown, the referee blew the final whistle.

This low-key game could have gone either way, but with Alton dropping the ball three times when over or near the goal line, they could not really claim that they deserved to win.

Alton are home to runaway league leaders Richmond in two weeks' time.