Matty Stevens scored a late equaliser to earn Forest Green a 1-1 draw at Port Vale and stretch their unbeaten run in the league to 16 games.

It appeared as though on-loan striker Ryan Edmondson’s first-half finish would be enough to earn Port Vale victory and complete a league double over Rovers, but Stevens poked home his 21st goal of the season in all competitions to deny them.

Edmondson put the hosts ahead in the 12th minute after his flicked header from Chris Hussey’s inswinging corner found its way into the net.

They deservedly went into the half-time break in the lead but Forest Green came out fighting in the second half with leading marksmen Stevens testing Tomas Holy three minutes after the restart with a close-range effort.

Forest Green were by no means piling the pressure on Vale but they were still able to snatch a point through Stevens in a true show of why they sit top of the league.

Rovers boss Rob Edwards was pleased with the character shown by his team, whose lead at the top of League Two has been reduced to eight points following Tranmere’s 1-0 win over Stevenage. It had stood at 10 points following Forest Green's 4-0 win at Prenton Park on Saturday.

“I thought they had the first half – no doubt about it,” he said.

“I thought we had most of the second up until we scored and obviously they start pushing again.

“The momentum shifted a bit because they’re at home and they wanted to push and I think we probably went more into protect mode.”

Port Vale manager Darrell Clarke felt there were two offside calls that should have gone his team’s way in the build-up to the corner that led to the leveller.

“I’m very disappointed that there are two offsides that lead to a corner that lead to their goal,” he said.

“Not one, two. It cost us the game.

“So I’m disappointed – I’m disappointed for my players, I’m disappointed for my supporters. I thought we deserved to win.

“They’re a good team. They’re top of the league for a reason.

“They’re the best team in the league at this point of the season, so we knew it was going to be a tough game but we knew we could give them a lot of questions and I thought the first half was excellent.

“We needed to get a little bit better quality going in the second half if I’m honest but as for effort and commitment from everybody I can’t fault it.”