Scunthorpe United boss Brian Laws admitted the 1-1 draw with Dagenham and Redbridge almost felt “like a defeat”.
The Iron, who remain unbeaten in their opening three fixtures in League Two, looked to have snatched victory in the 90th minute when David Mirfin’s headed home.
However, deep into stoppage time, Daggers’ Luke Howell sprang the offside trap to equalise in a game Laws felt his side should have seen out.
“It almost feels like a defeat and make no mistake we are all disappointed about that,” he said.
“We struggled to break them down in the first half they sat very deep and went in level at half time.
“That obviously gave them some confidence and they came out in the second half and really, for a ten minute spell, took the game to us and really could have scored.
“But then when we did take the lead we really should have had enough to see the game out.
“Sadly we didn’t, which comes as something of a surprise given that I thought we had that in our locker.
“But we will learn from it and there are things we can go back and work on a build on.”
Before Mirfin gave them the lead, Scunthorpe could have edged ahead from the penalty spot, however, new signing Chris Iwelumo’s effort was saved.
Despite the miss, Laws refused to blame his striker.
“You can’t criticise anyone for stepping up and the one he (Iwelumo) took at Barnsley he scored,” he added.
“We simply didn’t get going and Deon was coming too deep trying to get hold of the ball,
“We also didn’t get the delivery into the box enough to hurt them, and then when we did we showed that we could hurt them.
“After that we scored and should really have seen out the game, but we didn’t so we move onto next week.”
Scunthorpe travel to Wimbledon on Saturday, kick-off is 3pm.