Taylor backs Nelson after gaffe

Gillingham boss Peter Taylor refused to blame at Stuart Nelson after his late error handed Port Vale a point at Priestfield Stadium.

Dany N'Guessan had given Vale the lead before John Egan's first two league goals for the Gills put the hosts in control - only for Nelson to spill Michael Brown's injury-time strike into his own net. However, Taylor insists it was a wasteful start to the second half that cost them, rather than a goalkeeping gaffe. "It's not a nice feeling," he said. "Their second goal is normally saveable, and that hurts, but Stuart has apologised to me and to the squad and I understand it. "I think the ball may have been spinning, but he held his hands up straight away. Everybody makes mistakes in matches - in the 90 minutes, he was fine. That's the problem with being a goalkeeper; if you make a mistake, it goes in. "At the start of second half, we should have scored more. We were in a couple of times quite easily. We all know if there's a goal in it, then anything can happen. "I thought our luck was slowly changing. If they score a great goal I can live with that. I felt as though we did enough to score three goals at least. "But we've got another point, we're on a better run that we were. There's 19 matches gone, there's plenty to do. I think we're improving, and as long as we keep doing that, we'll keep picking up points." Meanwhile Taylor's opposite number - Rob Page - was left grinning from ear to ear after 37-year-old Brown popped up late on to snatch a 2-2 draw for the visitors. "He's been there and done it, he's got the experience," said the Vale boss. "I just said to him 'the old timer has done it again!' "It feels like a win. I thought we dictated the play for the first 30 minutes, and it could have been a different matter at half time with the chances we created. I'm not going to complain - their attitude and effort was tremendous. "Dany N'Guessan had a great chance he put over, we hit the bar, we hit the post, so it would have been an injustice if we had come away with nothing. "They gave me everything. I already had my end-of-game talk ready for them before the equaliser - I was proud of the performance. "I can never accept a defeat, but there's a way to lose games in football, and up until the 94th minute, we had done everything we could apart from put the ball in the net again. "The never-say-die attitude is what the players have brought to the table."