Gillingham manager John Coleman took the blame as his team surrendered their 1-0 lead in stoppage-time at Grimsby.
The Gills were leading thanks to Doug Tharne’s own goal on 35 minutes, and looked on course for a deserved win, but Danny Rose snatched a late equaliser in the seventh minute of added-on time at the end of the League 2 clash, which finished 1-1.
Report: Grimsby 1 Gillingham 1
Grimsby had barely threatened the Gills goal all night but they rallied late on, taking advantage of an enforced change when young defender Sam Gale went off with cramp. Coleman opted to put attacking midfielder Jonny Williams on as his replacement, rather than defender Max Clark.
Prior to the Grimsby goal, Gills keeper Glenn Morris made a superb reflex save to keep them ahead. After equalising, the hosts went close again to almost winning it.
Coleman felt that the decision cost them maximum points.
He said: “I’ve been managing a long time and I made the wrong sub at the end, and that’s no disrespect to Jonny Williams, but I should have put Max Clark on and gone to five at the back.
“Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but it’s not hindsight. I’m experienced enough to know that that was the call and I made the wrong one. I’m man enough to admit it that I made the wrong one.
“As I said, that’s no slight on Jonny. We should have just gone five at the back and tightened it up.
“They were going long, they hadn’t laid a glove on us in the whole of the second half, until the last five minutes where they could have scored three.
“We had a warning when Glenn’s made a great save, that was about three minutes to go. I’ve got to make a sub. To be honest, for all my experience, I’ve made the wrong call.
“It’s not to say that they definitely wouldn’t have scored, but we’d have had a better chance because we would have had more people in position and maybe Shad (Ogie) would have been closer to the goal to maybe cut the cross out, and Max trying to stop the cross, rather than on the other way round with Shad trying to stop the cross. We would have had an extra man in the box.
“I’ve got to take full responsibility for that.
“If you don’t recognise your mistakes, you’ll never learn. I’m not that pig-headed that I won’t recognise when I make a mistake, and I have made a mistake.
“For all your experience, when you’re trying to see out a win, sometimes you make the wrong calls, and I did.
“I thought we played ever so well, particularly in the second half.
“Conditions were very, very difficult. We absolutely dominated the second half.
“We hit the woodwork twice, well they hit it for us once. I don’t know how Tim Dieng’s header stayed out, to be honest.
“I can’t fault the work they’ve done for the players.
“You’ve seen how much they’ve given, and you’ve seen how much they’re hurting.
“We’ve got to try and build on another away game where we haven’t got beat but we’ve still got to make more chances. They were there for the taking in the second half, and we didn’t take it.”
Successive 1-1 draws away from home followed four straight defeats. It’s progress but the Gills need wins to climb back up the table.
They remain 17th in League 2, 13 points off the play-off places, with 20 games left.
It was a better performance from the Gills on the night.
Coleman said: “I just want us to give everything we’ve got, and our fans deserve that. They’ve were out in numbers again. Fantastic.
“I’m just so disappointed. I’m disappointed in myself, and I’m really, really disappointed for the players because of the effort they’ve put in, that they haven’t been awarded for the game we should have won.
“It’s bad enough when you get beat in the last minute, but it’s nowhere near as bad as conceding an equaliser in the last minute because you’re losing two points instead of one.
“It’ll take me days to get over that.”
