AFC Wimbledon manager Johnnie Jackson felt his team battled well in their 0-0 draw at home to Chesterfield.
The point at Plough Lane – in a game that was mostly incident free – did little for the hosts and their push for automatic promotion, nor the play-off hopes of the visitors.
With neither side able to find the breakthrough, Jackson believed his men were on top after the break.
He said: “Chesterfield are a good team, you’re never going to blow these teams away. We pushed and tried to win it, so I can’t be disappointed with the lads.
“With three games to go, we’re still in there fighting for these automatic spots. Credit to my players.
“We were the better team in the second half, in fairness to them they shaded the first.
“In the second half I felt if there was going to be a winner it was going to be us. But if you go gung-ho they’ll pick you off. We’re not quite at that stage where we needed to do that.
“Maybe we could have worked their keeper a bit more, we got into some good crossing positions, sometimes the deliveries were good and other times not so.”
The game struggled to kick into life, with both sides able to fend off the other in attack.
The visitors started well, and Liam Mandeville just failed to direct his glancing header the right side of the post after twelve minutes.
James Tilley failed to keep his 22nd-minute effort on target, after a Josh Neufville cross into the area.
Josh Kelly aimed his effort on 30 minutes straight at keeper Ryan Boot, after some good build-up play with Omar Bugiel.
The shot-stopper denied the Lebanese forward just before the break, while Callum Maycock blasted over the bar two minutes after the interval.
A looped effort from Osman Foyo forced Boot to palm away late on, in perhaps the only real incident of note.
Chesterfield assistant manager Daniel Webb was pleased with both the performance and the point gained by his outfit.
He said: “Very proud we are today, of our players and our football club. We’ll all be going home very proud today.
“They’re a very good and strong team, two different styles on the pitch, they’ve had a very good season.
“We had to stand up to it, balls in the box and long throws, we did that and we were dangerous on the counter-attack.
“We’re not known as a counter-attacking team, but that could have been a good method for winning the game today.
“We have to respect the point, we’re disappointed not to have won, but it would been a lot worse if they had scored in the 94th minute.”
