Banks o’ Dee and Brora Rangers felt a point apiece was a fair result – and neither think it significantly dents their Breedon Highland League title challenge.
The Cattachs twice came from behind to earn a 2-2 draw with the Aberdeen side at Spain Park.
The outcome means Dee are three points behind leaders Brechin City – who they face at Glebe Park on Tuesday – having played a game more.
Brora are 19 points off the summit, but do still hold four games in hand.
Dee co-manager Josh Winton said: “It’s disappointing from the perspective of being ahead twice and not seeing the game out.
“But over the piece a draw is probably a fair result.
“It doesn’t really help either side, but I don’t think we’ll look back at the end of the season and think a draw at home to Brora is a bad result.
“They’re a good side who knock the ball about well, but having been ahead twice we’re disappointed not to have seen the game out.
“We just try to concentrate on what we’re doing and see where it takes us.”
Cattachs can’t be counted out
Brora player-assistant manager Josh Meekings added: “Overall I was very pleased with the character in the dressing room and the way we went about our jobs.
“We got our rewards getting an equaliser twice and 2-2 was probably fair assessing the game as a whole.
“We just need to take it one game at a time, we’ve been that many games behind that it’s hard to get a true reflection of how things will pan out.
“It has been a difficult season for us in terms of the fixture backlog, but we don’t want to make excuses and we’ll give it the best go we can.
“That means taking it game by game and trying to win each game in front of us. That’s how we’ll go about and try to make sure our season doesn’t fizzle out.
“We’re not ruling ourselves out, you keep going. It’s that bit more difficult now because we’re behind, but it’s up to us to catch up and bridge the gap.
“We’ve got big games to come and they may dictate how the season pans out more than the ones recently.”
Spoils shared
Brora had the first chance of note when Paul Brindle rounded goalkeeper Daniel Hoban after exchanging passes with Ali Sutherland. But with the angle against him Brindle hit the right post with his attempted finish and Hoban gathered the loose ball.
Seconds later Dee struck. Lachie MacLeod beat the offside trap to latch onto Chris Antoniazzi’s ball in behind before finishing beyond goalkeeper Danny Gillan.
In the 14th minute the hosts almost added to their lead. Max Alexander’s ball into the box was misjudged by Alex Cooper and Gillan which allowed Michael Philipson to nip in.
However, Tom Kelly got back to hook Philipson’s net-bound shot off the line.
As half-time approached Jordan MacRae broke through on goal following good work by Sutherland, but Hoban was on hand to block.
Five minutes after the break the Cattachs restored parity. Tony Dingwall’s corner from the left was palmed down by Hoban and Mark Nicolson dispatched the loose ball from 12 yards.
The sides traded chances with Hoban doing well to repel Brindle and Gillan making a good stop to thwart Dee sub Garry Wood.
On 72 minutes Banks o’ Dee moved ahead again. Sub Mark Gilmour’s corner from the right was headed on by Kane Winton and sub Ethan Cairns netted from three yards.
Shortly after Wood volleyed wide from Cairns left-wing cross, but Brora responded and claimed their point with an 82nd minute leveller.
Sutherland crossed from the left and MacRae planted a header into the right corner.
