Ryan Tinsley
Any time you come away from a football match keeping the status quo on the points table one would like to think there's little to quibble about.
Okay, Hawke's Bay United could have returned with three points against Canterbury United in Christchurch on Saturday but it pays to reflect on the possibility that they could have caught their flight back with nothing to show for it.
Consequently coach Brett Angell and his troops will take one point and peace of mind from their Football Park 1-1 "non-defeat" in their first ASB Premiership game in round nine since the Christmas holidays.
"We made sure the closest team [Canterbury] didn't get any closer," Angell said in a game that became a penalty-kick affair.
Stand-in captain Ryan Tinsley scored the first one in the 47th minute when fellow midfielder Viktor Lekaj went hurtling over an outstretched leg of a defender cutting across in the 18m box.
It took only eight minutes for the visitors to return the hosts a favour - Aaron Clapham didn't need a second invite, putting it past Bay goalkeeper Joshua Hill.
Tinsley again found himself at the penalty-kick spot in the 85th minute following a foul but this time Dragons goalkeeper Adam Highfield was equal to the occasion in denying Bay United three points.
Angell felt his men let their guards down instead of getting on the front foot after drawing first blood.
The Sean Devine-coached Cantabs started calling the shots in the midfield and were duly rewarded in the second half.
"I thought we had the ascendancy in the first half and their keeper made some good saves," Angell said.
"We were chasing the ball but when we got it the last pass or decision was wayward."
All up, the coach was realistic in his expectations of a team who were coming off several weeks of inactivity to stay a rung above the Dragons on the ladder with the Wellington Phoenix Reserves now second and world movers and shakers Auckland City third after the 'Nix men's 3-1 upset yesterday.
"They put in a good shift on a hot day on an Astroturf pitch," Angell said of the Bay boys.
Will the team be in for penalty-shooting practice this week?
"Ryan's been exceptional. He didn't convert one today but at the end of the day he's very reliable," he said of the English import who is third equal in the golden-boot race on four goals with Team Wellington's Luiz Corrales and Bay-born Tom Biss playing this summer for Waitakere United.
Phoenix's Tyler Boyd leads with five.
Angell was also happy to have given more players a run on Saturday.
Captain Ross Haviland was serving a match suspension and striker Sean Lovemore was attending a friend's wedding.
Teenage Bay striker Fane Morgan didn't travel because he was ill.
However, English striker/midfielder Saul Halpin returned from chicken pox to play 90 minutes.
The season is over for Waipukurau defender Harry Morton after jetting off to the United States on an American soccer scholarship.
Joe Sowden has returned to England while fellow midfielder Kosuko Mimaki is heading back to Japan with his visa due to expire.
Add to those departures reserve goalkeeper Adam McDonald, of Auckland, who felt he should have been the first-choice gloveman.
Angell has signed on Rudi Bauerfeind and welcomed youth defender Bayley Chadderton, both from the Bay.
They were on the bench on Saturday but didn't run on.
Canadian import winger Troy Pennycooke-Morgan did, though, after eight weeks of recovery form a knee injury.
"He still has a lot of work to do ... but he'll get stronger," he said of the Ottawa player who has expressed difficulties in adapting to Angell's style of play.
Angell said it was a great opportunity for Bay fans to watch Fifa Club World Cup hotshots Auckland this Sunday in Napier with both sides locked on 12 points with Nix.
"We'll see whether the boys can acquit themselves against Auckland," he said after Bay United lost 3-2 in round one on November 2.
WaiBOP pipped Southern 1-0 but Team Wellington suffered their first season's defeat to Waitakere United, 2-1. Bay's Bill Robertson scored a goal for the nine-man Team Wellington.