Leyton Orient head coach Richie Wellens admitted he was quite happy with a point after a dramatic 2-2 draw with Colchester United.
The League Two leaders looked set to another victory at Brisbane Road, in front of a crowd of 8,684, thanks to a first-half George Moncur penalty and a 68th-minute effort from Ruel Sotiriou.
But Colchester struck back in the last minute of normal time, then snatched a share of the spoils in the second minute of stoppage time to leave O six points clear of Stevenage at the top of the table.
“If you look at the whole game, I’m quite happy with one point, because we didn’t play well from the first minute, we were offside,” Wellens told the club’s website.
Moncur fired from the spot against his former club after Paul Smyth, named EFL player of the year at the PFA awards in London earlier in the week, was fouled by Fiacre Kelleher.
That brought Moncur’s tally for the season to seven and the 22-year-old Sotiriou scored his fifth of the campaign midway through the second half with a strong finish.
But Connor Hall headed in a corner to give U hope and Noah Chilvers fired past Lawrence Vigouroux from 20 yards to ensure the honors ended level, and Wellens had to lament the latest lapses in concentration.
“The biggest disappointment was our body language,” he added.
“We are winning 2-0 with more or less 90 minutes and we don’t organize from set pieces, we are going very slowly, the ball has been out of play for 20 seconds and you are playing against a club that is desperate, they are fighting for their lives in the bottom of the league.
“They run into a corner and we’re not marking well and we let someone cross in front of us.
“And then the second goal, we kick it onto the field when we don’t have a physical presence there against three center backs.
“Then we pick up the second ball, but when we can breastfeed and play or put it in an area where they can’t return it directly to us (we don’t), because the pitch is bad, it’s very difficult.” .
“Sometimes we try to get the players to be better, but it’s a really tough course to play, it’s very boggy and sometimes it bounces firm, but most of the time it bounces and just takes weight off of it.”
“Then they play long and one of my centre-backs vacates his box, they take advantage of that and Chilvers has the ball, it’s a good finish.”
“Just slow down, be patient in his defence, let him pass it out to right back and if he does I think we won the game.”
“But we get too excited, we over-commit, he cuts inside and it’s hard for ‘Vigs’ because he doesn’t know if he’s going to go left or right, because he’s a good player and it’s a good finish for the guy.”
Title rivals Stevenage drew 0-0 as promotion hopefuls Carlisle and O’s make the long journey to relegation-threatened Hartlepool next weekend.