By Jon Colman at Brunton Park

Last updated 13:35, Wednesday, 09 April 2008

Carlisle United 0 Swansea City 0: Stalemate. We’ll get the word in early, because you won’t be seeing it again.

• Slideshow: View photos from the game (no audio)

Simon Hackney

In fact, any reporter who commits it to print in reference to this game needs to be sent straight back to college, preferably via the optician.

Stale this goalless draw certainly wasn’t. And any idea that Carlisle versus Swansea was an old friends’ reunion disappeared at half-time as League One’s top two teams heatedly squabbled their way down the tunnel.

There should be no howls of astonishment when a game played at such soaring intensity occasionally cracks the thermometer, as it did in the 40th minute here when a chain of tasty tackles led to a booking apiece for Grant Smith and Andy Robinson. It took five more minutes of jabbing fingers and contorted faces, and then 15 minutes of interval calm, for the heat to be lowered to a manageable level.

But we’ve all seen far uglier exchanges on a football pitch. A small crime would be committed on these pages if too much space was donated to the spats which appeared before us last night. Swansea, and the spiky Robinson in particular, brought too much attacking class to the occasion for any other information to warrant being pushed to the front.

And Carlisle’s tenacity in keeping their sheet clean against the division’s most dangerous travelling army also needs to be flagged up without delay.

News just in: the League One table is keeping no secrets. Anyone who claims to have seen a more gifted side than Swansea at Brunton Park this season is in need of medication. In their fizzing football we saw precisely why Roberto Martinez’s team are about to take flight into the Championship.

And in Carlisle’s obstinate defending, we witnessed how John Ward’s troops remain the next best thing the third tier has to offer, even on a night when their attacking qualities remained mostly hidden. Swansea hit the bar twice, both through Robinson free-kicks, but it is with some satisfaction that we can report that Keiren Westwood was not required to be at his extravagant best from any of the visitors’ other high-octane attacks.

Carlisle so successfully threw a blanket over Jason Scotland, Swansea’s 29-goal assassin, that the leaders had to look to their back-up weaponry. The problem here is that they had plenty. Robinson buzzed relentlessly down the left, Leon Britton probed down the centre, and it is a shame that we must check any praise for Febian Brandy’s racing feet with reference to the occasions when the Manchester United loanee hit the turf rather too keenly.

In the minus column goes Carlisle’s lack of composure in possession which saw the ball donated too frequently back to their dangerous guests; and the rarity with which they managed to prise open a defence which did not look impregnable, despite the excellence of Alan Tate at right-back. In those areas they looked a fair distance behind Swansea. But this was an exhausting point gained, be in no doubt.

It means Doncaster have four games in which to claw back six points on the Cumbrians for the second automatic promotion slot. That’s out on its own by several miles as the most important fact of the day.

United, sticking with the same tactics as previously but with Scott Dobie in for Cleveland Taylor on the right, made the sprightlier start. Marc Bridge-Wilkinson drew an early save from Dorus De Vries, then Smith drove wide from the edge of the box. A brace of menacing corners followed, and it took at least 20 minutes for Swansea to find a decent stride.

Some stride. In a flash, Brandy dummied in the centre-circle and was then released by Scotland; Danny Livesey’s block killed their first meaningful chance. Dobie, on the turn, tested De Vries with Danny Graham in more profitable space, but the balance was unquestionably shifting Swansea’s way.

Smith’s trip on Britton just after the half hour saw Robinson quickly curl the ball into the net; too quickly, in fact, for referee Steve Tanner’s liking. The Scouser’s retaken effort was then watched onto the top of the bar by Westwood. “It was never going in,” insisted the Carlisle ‘keeper, who has been so good lately that you can just about believe in his confidence.

Scotland then blasted a rare chance over after another slick Brandy burst. Carlisle’s response was so nearly decisive: Bridge-Wilkinson’s bright pass deflected into Graham’s path, but the striker slid United’s opportunity of the night millimetres past the left-hand post.

Chris Lumsdon’s zealous challenge on Brandy, which sent the Swansea man into a theatrical fit, then teed up a sequence of feisty engagements which ended with Smith and Robinson’s names dropping into the book, and that unsightly half-time dispute. Carlisle’s unrestrained midfield tackling was plainly designed to test Swansea’s temper, but an educated guess says they’ve faced far more calculated aggression than this – even if Martinez, on the touchline, grew increasingly cantankerous at the rawness of some of the confrontations.

Robinson, meanwhile, emerged for the second half even hungrier. In the opening seconds he curled another expert set-piece against the bar after a second Brandy collapse; the ball striking Westwood on its way down before Livesey could heave it clear.

This heralded the game’s most testing spell. Swansea came at United in a 20-minute gale and, in throwing hasty balls forward to the isolated Graham, the Cumbrians were struggling to help themselves stay upright, their midfield largely outmanoeuvred. Robinson ripped another pair of shots narrowly over, but Carlisle’s defence, with Peter Murphy magnificent, kept their penalty-box incisions to a minimum.

A couple of United breaks almost rewarded their fine rearguard efforts. Dobie headed a David Raven cross on target but at De Vries, then the home ‘keeper acrobatically palmed away Simon Hackney’s 25-yard missile.

Scotland’s frustration at his lot then emerged in a swinging arm at Murphy after a grapple between the two men, and a booking for the stifled Trinidadian. Sub Guillem Bauza’s late lob, headed off the line, was the night’s last meaningful act unless you include Raven upending Robinson and receiving the sixth booking of the game.

“It’s a passionate game,” said Ward of the contest’s sky-scraping temperature. “It’s part of what goes on in top games of football.” It will probably go on at Elland Road in three days time, too, where victory will almost seal the deal for Carlisle, but where defeat could keep the door open for Doncaster (or even Southend, the division’s late chargers). In short, set the sat-nav to avoid Leeds if you’re looking for a weekend of rest and relaxation.