Grimsby Town interim manager Anthony Limbrick was frustrated after his side were held to a 1-1 draw with Crawley Town in Sky Bet League Two at Blundell Park.
Town got off to the perfect start as Jake Hessenthaler scored his first league goal for the club on two minutes, after a good ball in from the left by Charles Vernam.
But John Yems’s side equalised on 37 minutes through forward Ashley Nadesan.
And Limbrick was pleased with his side’s performance, but was frustrated not to get all three points.
He said: “We got off to a great start – Charles Vernam again, I thought he was good in parts of the game, and got off to an excellent start down that side.
“We targeted both of their full-backs thinking we could get a bit of joy. Both were good going forward and attacking, but we felt Max Wright and Charles could get at them, and Charles did get at them.
“And that’s how we see Jake Hessenthaler in that role – getting in the box and scoring goals – so I was really pleased about that.
“But I thought after probably 10 minutes we weren’t as composed as we needed to be – it was probably our worst first half, in terms of possession and passing the ball, for a while.
“We didn’t quite pass it well enough, and their goal was probably deserved because they started to get a bit more possession.
“And second half we came out, and I thought we were the only team trying to win it – we were positive, and we got the ball into the box.
“Their goalkeeper, Glenn Morris, made more saves than James McKeown, who saved one free-kick.”
And Limbrick praised the Town fans for their excellent support, following the Mariners’ final match of the decade.
He said: “I think we deserved to get the win again, but again we’re saying that.
“You can see every single player is giving it everything they’ve got out there – you could tell that by the reaction of the fans.
“We haven’t won for a while now and the fans must be as frustrated as we are, but they ended up clapping us off the pitch so I think that probably says where we are at the moment.
“Everyone’s giving everything – staff and players – but unfortunately we’re sitting here after not getting the win again.”
