A late equaliser from Twin City captain Jayson Ferguson saw his side come away with a point against Melrose at Melrose Park on Sunday.
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Melrose looked destined for a 2-1 victory until Ferguson got in behind the defence in the last five minutes to make it 2-2.
The first half was mostly played in the middle of the park, until Michael Shimmin pounced in the 18-yard box with a tidy finish to put the Wanderers in front on the stroke of half-time.
Trailing sparked Melrose into action, and, just a minute into the second stanza, Jarryd Sundblom was brought down in the box and awarded a penalty.
Skipper Adam Waters stepped up to the mark and coolly slotted home the spot kick to bring the hosts level.
Less than three minutes later, Sam Brosolo found the top right corner from beyond 18 yards to edge Melrose in front.
Chances were flowing at either end until Ferguson made one count and was unlucky not to have a second from almost the same position.
Melrose coach Kade Rixon admitted it was a learning curve on how to close out a game.
"Being such a young group, it's all about scoring goals and shutting up shop isn't familiar for them, but it's something we'll learn from," Rixon said.
"Half-time was pretty quiet in the rooms and I was a bit shocked how they came out.
"I think that's the way we're going to be this year, there's going to be patches where it looks a million bucks and patches where it doesn't look much at all."
Brosolo was outstanding in the midfield in his second game for the club since crossing from Murray United.
"He's a real boss in there and at 20-21, he plays a lot older than that," Rixon said.
"He's what we need in there and we missed Jakob Barlow's creativity today, but he'll be back next week from holidays.
"We took the expectations off ourselves this year, so we don't look at it as a game we could have won or should have won.
"The first six to eight weeks we've pencilled in to learn how we go about it and after that we'll start judging results."
Twin City coach Shaun Wilhelm felt it was two points lost for the Wanderers.
"I said to the boys at half-time we need to jump out a bit quicker and they wanted it more the first five minutes, so we knew we were in for a bit of a scrap," he said.
"I think we probably deserved more out of the game."
Ferguson's class showed, Jarrod Murphy was excellent at the back, while Wilhelm's brother, Cayne, was imposing in the middle of the park.
"Jayson (Ferguson) said to me when I came on, 'can I go up high' and I said 'go and score' and he did," Wilhelm laughed.
"He could have had another one there but just had a heavy touch.
"It's good with the boys we've got, there's heaps of flexibility there and anyone can go out and do a job."
Centre back Caleb Matchan and goalkeeper Rohan Pearce are expected to return next weekend from cricket commitments.
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