Needham Market remain Leamington's 'bogey' side as the two sides shared the spoils in a 1-1 draw at the Ecologic Stadium Bloomfields on Tuesday night.
Tom Rothery's side were without captain Keiran Morphew, while Jacob Lay also dropped to the bench. Teddy Collis made his home and full debut with Luke Ingram also starting.
In truth neither 'keeper was majorly tested, though the Marketmen arguably had the better chances.
While Leamington went close 20 seconds after kick off, with a shot hitting the woodwork, a flurry of Needham corners saw two important defensive interceptions deny Jamie McGrath a sight at goal from close range in the third minute.
While stand in captain Dan Morphew blocked a ferocious long range shot, Tevan Allen's 14th minute exquisite right wing cross was flicked on smartly by Reggie Lambe at the near post, albeit nobody in a Red shirt was around to turn the ball home from point blank range.
St Albans loanee Iffy Allen drove down the left wing three minutes later, only to curl his shot over.
Marcus Garnham meanwhile held onto a shot in routine fashion on 24 minutes, while Ted Collis' far post header from 8-yards out, following a clever left wing cross, was well held by the diving Callum Hawkins on 33 minutes.
Collis and Ingram linked up well seven minutes later, only for the latter to fire his low shot narrowly wide of the right-hand corner.
Needham went close to breaking the deadlock five minutes after the restart, Bermuda International Reggie Lambe read a great ball over the top, one on one with Hawkins, but couldn't quite bring the ball under control.
Iffy Allen dragged a shot wide on 65 minutes, though Lambe did break the deadlock in the 68th minute. Kyle Hammond's long range right wing free-kick was headed dangerously across the box by a defender, which Jamie McGrath dummied for Lambe to rifle home into the top left-hand corner.
Needham continued to have the better chances, although it could be argued the visitors were enjoying good spells of possession, as Collis released Iffy Allen through onto the left-hand side, who smartly chopped inside the defender but shot wide on 75 minutes.
Jacob Lay reached the winger, before Lambe couldn't repeat his goal in the 80th minute. Virtually a copy of the game's opening goal, but this time the attacking midfielder shot over.
The Brakes took advantage three minutes later, securing a point as Henry Landers lashed home into the bottom left-hand corner.
Seth Chambers then replaced Lambe as five minutes of stoppage time came and went.
Needham travel to league leaders Chester on Saturday (3pm).
Midfielder Ben Hunter said, "I think it wasn't a great game, to be honest. I don't think neither team probably did enough to win the game. You could argue that we could score when we go 2-0 up and maybe it's a different game, but they might say equalised, you know, it's just probably a fair result. I think it could have been anyone (Man Of The Match). I thought the lads at the back were good tonight, the way they dealt with the aerial threat.
"I knew what Leamington would bring coming to here, just a pretty long ball, but I thought the lads at the back done well. And yeah, could have been anyone on the back line, I'd say, and maybe even Reggie if you're a goal scorer, yeah."
"It's just frustrating because I don't think we quite hit the levels of performance that we have hit in the past few weeks. And it's obviously frustrating, but then again, we had a long travel Saturday and a tough physical game Saturday and then another physical game tonight."
Ahead of the trip to Chester, Hunter added, "I don't think it gets much tougher than that, top of the league, but we'll go there and hope to try and implement our game plan and pass the ball.
"Hopefully we can, they underestimate us a little bit and we can go there and give it our all and I think it's a bit of a free hit against top of the league. But yeah, hopefully we can go put in a good performance and hopefully see where that takes us."
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