The result leaves Hertford still in fourth place in the table, with their opponents just below them, but their outside hopes of a play off place have now surely been put to bed, with a 13 point margin to make up on both Westcliff and Wimbledon.

“A draw was probably a fair result,” said Hertford head coach Kanwaijit Basra.

“The wind dominated the game. In the first half they didn’t use it as well as the probably should have but then we didn’t in the second half either, which is disappointing.

“We had around 70 per cent possession in the first half and they made more handling errors but we were 10-0 down.

“We had two clear cut chances to score tries but didn’t take them. We weren’t finishing off what we created.

“During the break we talked about using the wind and kicking to the corners but we didn’t really do it the second half.

“But it was a good game of rugby, very tough with the players putting everything into it. It’s just a shame we couldn’t get the win.”

Tring went 3-0 ahead with Tom Newton slotting over a penalty, and he then missed another attempt just before the half hour mark.

Hertford were unable to take advantage when the hosts had Sam Barnes sin-binned in the 22nd minute, but when the visitors saw Vince Young yellow carded for an apparent deliberate knock on, they capitalised, with Oscar Nicholson-Potter going over for a converted score.

That made it 10-0 at half-time.

Hertford played with plenty of enterprise early in the second half, and were rewarded in the 45th minute with a try from Lemon after some 26 phases, with Ben Lloyd adding the conversion to cut the deficit to 10-7.

“We kept the ball really well in that sequence which is something we’d been working hard on,” said Basra.

In the 50th minute a knock on from Hertford saw Tring’s Charlie Lambourne go over the whitewash to make it 15-7. The conversion was missed.

Three minutes later, Hertford were right back in it as James Kinsley scored his side’s second try in the corner following good build up play.

At this crucial stage of the game Red Newberry was sin-binned. “I don’t see how we got two yellow cards,” said Basra. “It wasn’t that sort of game, the decisions were dubious at best.”

Lloyd split the posts with a penalty in the 65th minute to level the score at 15-15. “That was a very good kick, it was just inside the halfway line and he had the wind,” added Basra.

This Saturday Hertford travel to Bedford Athletic.

“That will be tough, they have recruited a few players and been going quite well getting themselves out of the relegation zone.

“We’ve just got to be on our mettle and take the game to them.”