Gold Coast United coach Miron Bleiberg said his sides great escape in Saturday night's 1-all draw with Adelaide showed two qualities needed to compete in the finals, character and determination.
United were nearly left red-faced after Adelaide Captain Travis Dodd put the visitors ahead on 20 minutes. The Reds dominated the match in both halves and looked to have all three points sewn up, but the league's bottom side were gutted as Shane Smeltz rose to head home with close to 30 seconds left in the match.
Saturday night's encounter was almost a reversal of Gold Coast and Adelaide's Round-15 clash at Hindmarsh stadium. United, with a man down, had its 1-0 lead dashed when Mathew Leckie equalised right on full-time with Bleiberg quick to point this out to the media after the match .
"People have a short memory of what happened in Adelaide last time, we were leading with 10 men and they scored in the 93rd minute, I believe they got back what they deserved, but in all honesty Adelaide deserved more," Bleiberg said.
"I think their desperation of such a proud club not to finish last was probably stronger, but our desperation (to equalise) came as a young club looking to climb into the top two, but we will learn from it."
"(But) if you want to call it a great escape I agree with you, I think that Adelaide deserved more."
"Overall I'm very proud of the character of the boys, again we didn't give up although we had a bad day and that's a sign of things to come." He said.
Gold Coast have fast become the A-league's come-back kids, managing to get results against Perth (Round-11),Central Coast (Round-18), Brisbane (Round-21) and Adelaide (Round-22) after going a goal behind in each match.
"We are doing a lot of comebacks and for a new club that is made up of a lot of new players that haven't played together before, we have a good character which will carry us," Bleiberg said.
Gold Coast will play its second game in four days at home to Newcastle on Wednesday night. United are yet to inflict a defeat on Branko Culina's side this season and will be looking for all three points as the race for the top-two heats up.