Poor defending for the goal and missing easy chances had Steve Evans less than happy after Stevenage drew at Harrogate Town.

Carl Piergianni had put Boro ahead in the second half of the League Two game at a very blustery Wetherby Road but, with 13 minutes to go, Luke Armstrong equalised with an unmarked header from about a yard to leave the sides level at 1-1.

And while there was praise from the Boro boss for the efforts of his side in the gale-force conditions, as well as coping with the transition from their memorable FA Cup success at Aston Villa, it was the key little moments which left him glum.

Evans said: "I thought at half-time we’d step up and we did. We laid siege to their goal and got the goal, got the breakthrough. 

"And then we don’t track a runner and it is the only chance they make in the second half.

"We simply don’t track a runner and I’ve told the player concerned. If he doesn’t track another one, he’ll not play again, it is as simple as that. 

"When it comes into the box, Carl should be closer to the goal scorer. I’m not saying he should stop Armstrong because he is really decent in the air, but we should do better for the goal. 

"We had two easy chances to win it at 1-0, or they look easy for me. I’ll look at the TV footage. 

"But we're 1-0 up and it should have been 3-0 and game over."

Evans had gone with the same players that had started at Villa Park, resisting the urge to blood any of the three new players.

That is something he will look back on but he still thinks it was the right decision.

The boss said: "If I’m being critical of myself, we were probably too loyal to the boys who started at Villa. 

"But if you have a group of young men, you say to them if you go out and deliver, you keep the shirt. It doesn’t matter who comes in." 

Jake Forster-Caskey and Daryl Horgan both came on in a quadruple change moments after Piergianni's goal.

The third new face, on-loan defender Jonathan Tomkinson, was an unused substitute.

But Evans quickly revealed that any grace period the new boys had is all but up.

"They need to do better," he said. "They have only trained with us for a few days and Jonathan [Tomkinson] only arrived at the team hotel last night. 

"He’ll have a part to play.

"We have brought the boys in to give us added competition around the squad, and they will do that, but they need to do better than they did today.

"But then how can you judge a footballer in this?

"I'll have to look at the detail and what the detail will tell me is we were sloppy in periods in the first half and when we get the goal, we should go and make two and then three.

"We pay a price by not doing that.

"We’ll take the point, we wanted three, but we’ll learn from it and we’ll get ready for a real humdinger of a game next week [at home to Leyton Orient].

"Next week won’t decide whether we get promoted, but dropping two points here might."