JOHN Brayford's first League goal of the season ensured a share of the spoils from a hard fought 1-1 draw against Accrington Stanley.

Albion found themselves behind to Dion Charles strike before Brayford struck with a header from a corner to level things up and for a while it looked like Albion would go on and grab a winner as the first half wore on but a more even second half saw both sides cancel each other out and having to settle for a point apiece.

Albion's line-up showed three changes from their last outing against MK Dons ten days previously. Out of Albion's three January signings to date only Jamie Murphy made the starting line-up, slotting in on the left-hand side of the attacking trio with Oliver Sarkic restored to the side on the right flank with Lucas Akins becoming the focus of the attack following the deaprture earlier in the day of leading scorer Liam Boyce. The third change saw a return to the side for Colin Daniel at left back.

The opening stages were fairly sedate with neither side really threatening until Stanley grabbed the lead on the quarter of an hour mark. A long ball into the Burton box landed nicely for CHARLES and after finding a yard of space the striker fired in at the near post.

It really should have been two for the visitors a couple of minutes later when a left wing cross picked out midfielder Ben Barkley in the box and from a central position he headed over the bar. A good chance to punish a slow Burton start not taken.

And as the visitors continued to make most of the early running Jordan Clark flashed a left foot effort across goal as the first half reached the midpoint.

It took Albion until the half hour mark to really get going but they made it count when they did. A pacy run from Ryan Edwards earned a corner and from Sarkic's delivery BRAYFORD got up well to direct his header into the bottom corner.

Having bagged his first League goal of the season Brayford quickly went in search of another, an overhead kick from the next corner not threatening the goal before a hastily taken right foot shot from the edge of the box missed the target as Albion sensed a chance to take the game by the scruff of the neck.

Stanley thought they had regained the lead on 42 minutes when Charles fired in after Kieran O'Hara made a good save from Sadou Diallo but the assistant's flag soon quelled the visitors celebrations.

The half ended with untidy scenes when Stanley defender Mark Hughes refused to release the ball after Albion had been awarded a free kick and when Edwards tried to retrieve the ball it turned ugly with both players seeing yellow from the referee.

Half time: Burton Albion 1-1 Accrington Stanley

Albion were forced into an early change in the second half as Conor Shaughnessy replaced Sarkic ten minutes after the restart and the temperature of the game rose another notch when Quinn's foul on Seamus Conneely earned him a yellow card and infuriated the Stanley skipper and team mates alike.

Quinn almost punished them on 65 minutes with a curling low shot from the edge of the box that had keeper Josef Bursik scrambling.

Accrington went looking for the lead again and missed a decent chance on 73 minutes, Diallo blazing over the bar after a neatly worked corner kick routine.

Albion got to see Joe Powell for the final twelve minutes of the game as he replaced Murphy who had played his first game since October.

A final change for the Brewers saw David Templeton replace Fraser for the closing minutes as Albion pushed to try and make it five home League wins in a row.

Nothing fell for either side late on as Albion's winning run came to an end.