IPSWICH Town and Crewe striker Dean Ashton may yet both end up in the Premiership next season and if they do then both might have cause to be grateful to events at Gresty Road yesterday.

Ashton, 21, enhanced his reputation with two more well-taken goals to take his tally for the season to 17.

Yet while Dario Gradis side possess attacking flair in abundance, they remain defensively naive and their two-goal lead duly dissolved in the second half as Ipswich showed the resolve they will need to stay the pace at the top of the table by fighting back to draw a game they could easily have won.

You can look at it both ways. To come back from two goals down on foreign soil is a great result, but equally we missed enough chances to win three games, so it was two points lost, said Ipswich manager Joe Royle.

Twice in the opening quarter-of-an-hour Ipswichs two strikers got the better of Crewes last defender but first Darren Bent steered his shot inches wide and then Shefki Kuqi shaved the other post.

A goal appeared inevitable but when it did come it was at the other end, with Ashton twice cutting in from the left to shoot across Kelvin Davis, the first from a David Vaughan pass and the second a sweet, first-time shot from a pass by the typically inventive Kenny Lunt.

Richard Naylor cut the deficit from a corner before Bent hooked his 10th goal of the season into the top corner to equalise.

We played some super football in the first half and scored two good goals, said Gradi, but we knew two would not necessarily be enough and in the second half we showed our frailty.

Peter Oliver (Sunday Times)