John Coleman placed the blame on himself for a late substitute call as he was denied his first win as Gillingham boss thanks to a last-gasp equaliser in a 1-1 draw with Grimsby.
Danny Rose tucked in at the near post in the seventh minute of added time to rescue a point for the Mariners after Doug Tharme’s first-half own goal had given the visitors something to hold onto.
On the whole, it was a scrappy affair at Blundell Park, with each side managing just one shot on target until stoppage time, when Grimsby pushed further forward and had a chance to win the game with the final action.
After a controlled defensive performance for much of the second half, Coleman admitted he made the wrong call with a late change in trying to see out the win.
He said: “I’ve been a manager for a long time, and I admit that I made the wrong substitute, which is no criticism to Jonny Williams, but I should’ve brought on Max Clarke to give us an extra defender.
“It’s on me, and I’m experienced enough to know that I made the wrong call. We should’ve gone back because they hadn’t laid a glove on us for all the second half, but they could have scored three in the last five minutes.
“We had the warning with about three minutes to go when Glenn (Morris) made the save, and for all my experience in the game, I’ve made the wrong call.
“It’s not that they definitely would not have scored if we made a different change, but we would have had a better chance to defend it because more people would have been in a position to stop the chance.
“I thought we dominated the second half, hit the woodwork twice, and I cannot fault the work-rate of the players, who are devastated after that. I’m more disappointed with myself in the end.”
It was relief for David Artell in the home dugout.
The Grimsby boss said: “We were certainly the better team in the first half and created more opportunities in the first half, so we should have been in a better position, but in the end, our resilience and our doggedness in the second half saw us over the line.
“There were lads there fighting not to lose, and when we scored the equaliser, we were urging them to restart quickly because we had them on the ropes, and in the end, they were tired.
“No matter what metric you look at, we were better than them in the game, so we didn’t deserve to lose.
“That is a game we might have lost earlier in the season, which shows how we’ve improved.”
