A last gasp penalty by Scott Burgess ruined Metro's victory celebrations and rescued a 2-all draw for North Force.
The scrappy Northern League division one match seemed destined for a draw until the 89th minute when Rafi Mohammadi scored what the crowd at Phyllis Street thought was a winner.
Withtime up on the clock, North Force kicked off and launched their final assault which ended when Mark Ruddell was fouled in the Metro area, and Burgess made no mistake from the penalty spot.
"It was a pretty lucky result for us in the end," North Force skipper Aaron Taylor said.
"They were already celebrating their win and let their guard down but it was a bit of a wake up call for us, we're going to have to be a lot better than that if we're going to worry Birkenhead next week."
After the match swung to and fro in the first spell, Charlton Lacour scored from a free kick early on before Metro equalised just before the break. North Force had the better of the second spell but failed to put them away and that was a concern for Taylor with top-of-the-table Birkenhead due to visit on Sunday.
"We need to put our chances away against Birkenhead, they're a lot better than Metro so we won't get as many chances to score and we really want to show them that we're a different side from the team they beat 6-2 earlier in the season," he said.
The first round of Northland Premier Grade matches started on Saturday with wins to Kerikeri, Kamo and Tikipunga.
Kamo finished their match against Central Brown with three points but it was anything but easy going and it was a lucky goal that broke Central Brown's resistance after a close, scoreless first half. A mishit cross by Gavin Allan somehow found the net 15 minutes into the second half before goals by Jeremy Rintoul and Calvin Erick made it 3-0 at full-time. Tikipunga fought hard against Madhatters Green for a 2-1 win while Kerikeri were too strong for FC Whangarei, winning 4-0.
