A CLINICAL finish from Everton’s boy wonder Wayne Rooney earned Everton a point against Charlton at the Valley last night in an entertaining 2-2 draw.

Jason Euell twice put Addicks’ ahead from the penalty spot only for Steve Watson and Rooney to equalise for the Toffees.

The opening 10 minutes of the game ebbed and flowed and the pace of Tomasz Radzinski caused early problems for the home defence.

But with Scott Parker pulling all the strings in the centre of the park Charlton eventually seized the initiative.

The combative midfielder put behind him Saturday’s disappointment of being sent off at Wolves with an impressive display of crunching tackles and slide rule passing - which would have impressed the watching England manager Sven-Göran Eriksson.

But for all the home side’s possession, it took until the 24th minute before they made the breakthrough.

Claus Jenson cut inside from the left and combined with Euell and Radostin Kishishev before David Unsworth brought down the influential Parker.

Euell sent the resulting spot kick hard and low into the left hand corner of the net sending the former Ipswich and Arsenal goalkeeper the wrong way.

But Charlton’s lead did not last long and within two minutes Everton were level.

Watson ghosted in from the right to lift Pembridge’s floated cross over the head of Dean Kiely.

Charlton continued to press and Euell, Kishishev and Shaun Bartlett all went close before half time without any success.

Three minutes after the break Charlton once again regained the lead from the spot, following more good work by the inventive Parker who was at the helm of every home attack, when Hermann Hreidarsson was tripped by Joseph Yobo after Parker had split the Everton defence.

Euell once again stepped up to send Wright the wrong way.

Rooney had been largely anonymous up to this point and had spent the game well shackled by the home defence, until he scored.

But the 17-year-old displayed why he is valued so highly by club and country when he left Mark Fish routed to the spot after one touch from Gary Naysmith’s cross before smashing the ball into the roof of the net.

Charlton boss Alan Curbishley introduced Chelsea loan signing Carlton Cole with the hope he could provide one final flourish but it wasn’t to be.

If anything, Everton looked the more likely to snatch it at the end with both Radzinski and Naysmith going close before the referee brought an engaging match to an end.