Gillingham left Grimsby in low spirits on Tuesday night but their experienced goalkeeper Glenn Morris felt there was reason to be optimistic.
Morris was left frustrated after letting in a 97th-minute equaliser, just moments after a brilliant reflex save denied the hosts who had come alive in the final throws of the game.
Report: Grimsby 1 Gillingham 1
The Gills had taken a first-half lead, courtesy of an own-goal, and were then denied again twice by the woodwork in the second half.
“You just feel gutted,” said Morris, after the 1-1 draw.
“It’s a game where we feel like we’ve dominated. They hardly laid a glove on us the whole game.
“The last five minutes were a bit manic and they had a couple of opportunities. You’re praying to hang on, but it wasn’t to be.
“You can’t fault the effort from the boys and the whole squad. We’ve had a right go and on another day we’d have won it.
“We’ve got to take the positives because we were really good in spells and showed what we can do.
“There were a couple of opportunities and I’m really not sure how they’ve not gone in.
“We can’t feel sorry for ourselves. We had the opportunities in the game to score more and we didn’t. We’ve had a really good performance.
“The dressing room was disappointed afterwards but when you actually sit back and say that we’ve got a point there, it’s a positive point.
“We’ve got to move on. We’ve got Saturday to come and it can be a very important point if we go and back it up on Saturday.”
Morris was impressed by 20-year-old central defender Sam Gale who was brought into the defence, playing alongside Max Ehmer in the central role.
Gale was forced off towards the end with cramp.
“He did brilliant,” said the keeper. “He’s a grafter. He does really try and he headed and kicked. He put his body on the line.
“You could see that he was struggling when he went off. He did too much, really but that’s Sam, that’s what he does.”
Gillingham return to Priestfield on Saturday when they host second placed Notts County.
Morris said: “We just have to move on and try and get three points at home.
“It was gutting but we’ve got to pick ourselves up and get going for Saturday.”
