Workington Reds are still looking for that elusive first win of the season but came close to doing so in oppressive conditions at Stourbridge.

A 0-0 draw is always a good result on the road, particularly so after a long journey, but assistant manager David Hewson felt Reds deserved to win an absorbing contest.

“We weathered their early onslaught, rode our luck at times but generally gave a good account of ourselves,” he said after the team obtained their first away point of the new season.

“We were on top towards the end and a little unlucky not to gain all three points.”

The management team made the difficult decision to leave Sam Smith out of the starting 11 and recall Josh Calvert for his first appearance of the season. After a nervous beginning, Calvert made a solid contribution as Reds kept their first clean sheet of the new campaign.

A James Earl shot rattled the crossbar and Scott Allison, Conor Tinnion and Kyle May also went close to grabbing the winner in a second half Reds dominated.

It might have been different, though, had Stourbridge converted a 48th-minute penalty awarded for a needless trip by May on Matty Dodd.

The latter took the spot-kick but was thwarted by a fine Alex Mitchell save.

Hewson tweaked the formation in the second half and it almost paid dividends..

“It was a great team effort with outstanding individual contributions from Alex Mitchell, Anthony Wright, Scott Allison and Josh Calvert,” he said.

Reds will make the same journey on Saturday for the match at Halesowen Town but, before then, host Darlington 1883 at Borough Park tomorrow night (7.45pm). A Reds’ scout ran the rule over Darlington in their impressive 3-1 win over Barwell at the weekend.