LONDON, England (CMC) — Strikers Jamille Matt and Nahki Wells both scored against their old clubs in England on Tuesday night to boost their promotion chances.

Jamaican Matt, 31, salvaged a point for fourth-placed Forest Green Rovers — his sixth goal of the season — in a 1-1 home draw against League Two leaders Newport County, while Bermudian Wells, 30, set Bristol City on the path to a 2-1 win in London against Queens Park Rangers (QPR) in the Championship.

Forest Green fell behind on the stroke of half-time after conceding a penalty, but Matt, who was released by Newport in the summer, struck in the 76th minute to level it up, slotting home from close range following Matty Stevens’ cross.

“We can’t do a lot more than that without winning the game,” said Forest Green’s Head Coach Mark Cooper afterwards.

Wells marked his return to QPR, where he scored 24 goals in two loan spells before being sold to City by Premier League club Burnley for a reported £5 million (US$6.7 million) in January, by netting a 40th minute equaliser — his fifth goal of the season — after Rob Dickie had headed the home side into a 12th minute lead.

Wells’ equaliser came against the run of play, tapping in Callum O’Dowda’s deflected cross, and Adam Nagy added to QPR’s woes just after the break when O’Dowda pounced on a defensive error to set up the Hungarian’s fine finish.

Wells, who scored five times for City towards the end of last season after his January transfer, almost made the game safe five minutes from full-time, but his curling free kick clipped the outside of the post.

City’s Head Coach Dean Holden said afterwards: “Mark Warburton’s [QPR manager] teams are always very pleasing on the eye and they got the ball down in that first half and they gave us real problems. (Our keeper) Dan Bentley’s made some big saves at the right time.

“We’ve got the equaliser just before half-time, which is so important, and we had to change things a little bit in the second half to make us a little bit more solid and protect the spaces a bit more.

“We knew on the counter-attack we were going to be a threat and Callum O’Dowda with two assists, Nakhi’s come back to his old club and I could see in his eye before the game he was ready for this one having missed out on the last couple of games,” said Holden.

City are level on points with second-placed Bournemouth, who lost at home to Preston, while QPR dropped to 17th.