JAMES Henry admitted he broke one of football’s golden rules on the way to earning Oxford United a vital point against Scunthorpe United.

The hosts were incredibly fortunate to reach half-time trailing only to Ivan Toney’s strike, as the visitors dominated the opening 45 minutes.

But the one-goal lead was wiped out by Henry’s penalty, which earned the U’s a 1-1 draw which had looked far-fetched at the interval.

The midfielder was on spot-kick duty following Alex Mowatt’s miss against Portsmouth last weekend and Iron goalkeeper Matt Gilks guessed correctly – but began his dive early enough for Henry to switch sides.

“To be totally honest, I changed my mind halfway through (the run-up) because I saw the keeper move so early,” he said. “Thankfully it went in and got us a point.”

It was a welcome result in the context of United’s battle to keep the Sky Bet League One relegation battle at arms’ length.

But Henry readily admitted the opening 45 minutes had been woeful.

He said: “The first half was terrible, there’s no sugar-coating it – we were absolutely dreadful.

“We got a firm roasting at half-time and I think we needed it because performances like that in the position we’re in just aren’t acceptable.”

Henry was also involved in another talking point, when he appeared to block Rory McArdle’s goal-bound header with his right arm in the first half.

He said: “I was just trying to move my body to get something on it.

“Speaking to them it might have touched the top of my arm, but I couldn’t care less really now because I kept the ball out of the back of the net and we’ve got ourselves a result.”

Head coach Karl Robinson felt United’s midfield diamond was being over-run early on.

A change of shape helped, but the move to replace Wes Thomas with Jon Obika, who won the penalty, proved key.

Robinson said: “It was difficult for Wes because we were so bad. In some ways Wes was a bit of a scapegoat, because we weren’t good.

“You could have put Sergio Aguero up front in the first half and it wouldn’t have mattered, we were rubbish.

“In the second half, we were closer to Jon and had more belief in our second phase.

“We’ve still got so much more to do here and there’s so much more to come.”