Brechin City manager Andy Kirk was taking the positives from their draw with Fraserburgh at Bellslea.
The clash between the title-chasing Hedgemen and the reigning Breedon Highland League champions finished 0-0, with the visitors passing up the best chance to claim all three points when Botti Biabi’s second half penalty was saved by Joe Barbour.
A point means Brechin reduce Buckie Thistle’s lead at the top to five points and the Angus side still have two games in hand.
Boss Kirk said: “It’s a point and another clean sheet and a step in the right direction.
“We take the positives from it because we battled, worked hard, our shape was good and we didn’t concede many chances.
“Did we work their goalkeeper enough? No, but we’ve got to be positive and it’s another point added to the total.
“There’s a lot of games still to play and we’ll keep fighting away.
“We won a penalty and you’d hope we can convert it, Botti was confident and wanted to take it.
“But it happens we’ve had other players miss penalties this season.
“It’s easy to look back and say ‘should we change the penalty taker?’
“But at that point, our striker was saying he was confident and would score so you have to back him but unfortunately it wasn’t to be.”
Brechin’s Ewan Loudon was sent off in stoppage time for a sliding challenge on Kieran Simpson.
Kirk added: “From my angle, it’s hard to see but initially I was quite surprised to see the red card come out. I’ll need to have a look back at it.”
‘We could have put them under more pressure’
Fraserburgh remain fifth in the table and manager Mark Cowie said: “Defences were on top.
“Our shape without the ball was very good, we closed the space down and didn’t give them many chances.
“In the second half, I would have liked us to be a little bit braver, we had the wind behind us and didn’t really get a shot at goal.
“If we’d been a little bit more on the front foot we would have created a bit more.”
On the penalty, Cowie added: “Kieran (Simpson) leaned in and five times out of 10 you’ll get them. I’m not here to criticise referees and Joe made the save.
“I’m happier than I’ve been the last couple of home games but I still think going forward we could have put them under more pressure towards the end but it didn’t quite happen.”
In the fifth minute, Fraserburgh’s Scott Barbour forced visiting goalkeeper Lenny Wilson into a superb save with a strike from 20 yards.
However, that was the best effort at goal in the first period.
After the break decent openings continued to be hard to come by, Scott Barbour lashed over following a scramble at a corner midway through the second half.
On 79 minutes, referee Dan McFarlane awarded Brechin a penalty after Biabi beat the offside trap and went down as Simpson tried to recover and make a challenge.
The Broch players were incensed by the decision but goalkeeper Joe Barbour kept out Biabi’s effort with his legs.
Both sides kept pressing for the winner in the closing stages but neither managed to find it with the final piece of action being in the second minute of injury time when Loudon was dismissed.
Conversation