Walsall 1 Charlton Athletic 1

This was an 'interesting' game rather than 96 minutes of pulsating entertainment and the Addicks have a right to feel pretty aggrieved not to have come away with all three points.
In the dying seconds Yann Kermorgant's cross appeared to hit the hand of Walsall midfielder Richard Taundry in the box, but the referee either failed to see it or gave Walsall the sympathy vote.
While Frenchman Kermorgant was immediately calling for the decision (and insisted it was a penalty afterwards as was chatted by the team bus), he also had the good grace not to moan about it and shrugged: "That's football." Refreshing to hear a player 'talk' about a decision and not whinge about it. This may well be his own philosophy, but I suspect that it is also manager Chris Powell's.
What isn't in doubt is that Kermorgant, 30, joined Charlton because he wanted to make his mark in English football and knew that by working with Powell (who he knew as a team mate and coach at Leicester), he would get his chance to shine.
And he certainly did. Despite the player's marks out of ten in the paper - often provided from a source other than yours truly - I felt he deserved the man of the match award for his tireless hard work for the side.
To be fair to the Saddlers though, they did deserve something out of the game and so a draw was probably a fair result. I have seen Charlton play twice this season and have no doubt that they are the team to beat in League Two and so the Walsall lads should take a lot of confidence from this result in their efforts to climb clear of the drop zone. They certainly didn't play like a team resigned to a relegation scrap and in Jimmy Walker, 38, they have a keeper who has been there and got the t-shirt, but still gives his all for the club in every game I see him play.
And both Kermorgant and keeper Ben Hamer made the point to me afterwards that they needed to concentrate on - and in - every game if they were to win the title.
The highly rated former Reading trainee was also big enough to admit it wasn't his best game, but he could hardly be faulted for the Walsall goal.
Defender Mat Sadler (eventually sent off for a second booking in the 90th minute) rifled in a 20 yard goal bound drive in the 36th minute that nearly took the head off team mate Olly Lancashire, but fell to excellent vetren sriker Jon Macken to poke home from about six yards with Hamer wrong-footed.
Charlton's respnse couldn't have come at a worse time for the home team. As the the ref was checking his watch before blowing up for the break, lively winger Hogan Ephraim sent over a cross from the left and Kermorgant jumped to bury a header for his sixth goal of the campaign.
I've met Hamer several times before and he draw parallels with the Brentford side he won the League Two title with in 2009. The ability of the players on the pitch speaks for itself, but the camaraderie among the squad is also there for all to see and Ben made the point that they were all friends as well as team mates ... before they hopped on the coach and made their way to Liverpool for their Christmas session, er, I mean party,
Like many people in the game who have reached the dizzy heights of the Premier League and international football, Powell is slightly guarded when it comes to the media (maybe with good reason, I don't know), but is a pleasant guy and you can see why the Charlton players like working for him. A man's man is the football term I think.

My clipping from this morning's paper