DRAWS are a funny beast in any sport because teams can come away from them feeling either elated, indifferent or disappointed.
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St Pat's men's Premier League Hockey coach Richard Sharp definitely belonged in the latter camp after Saturday's 2-all result against competition leaders Lithgow Storm.
Sharp felt that his men were the stronger side throughout the contest - and that was certainly true during a dominant two-goal opening quarter - but seeing the hosts hitting back twice was tough for the Pat's mentor to stomach.
Not only did the Saints find early back-to-back goals to get proceedings off to a dream start but they had the chance to take a bigger lead during one of their most dominant periods of the season so far.
"We were 2-0 up straight away and probably missed another three to four opportunities just in that quarter so we should have been well up. They worked their way back into it so it was pretty disappointing, to be honest," Sharp said.
"Our goals were worked well. We built up well and took the chances. We built things up the same way but couldn't finish them off."
The Storm's two responses both came into the second quarter.
The first of them came on a short corner.
Saints players and Sharp pleaded their case for the initial shot to be called too high but after play was waved on Lithgow followed up with a goal on their next attempt.
Then Lithgow received a penalty stroke for a illegal challenge by the Saints goalkeeper and the Storm levelled the scores from the set shot.
Putting aside his disappointment surrounding both of Lithgow's goals, Sharp said the hosts' effort while being down on firepower was impressive.
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"I really though that we dominated the game but I must say, to Lithgow's credit, they were down on troops and had a couple of the older Panthers players back in the team to help them out," he said.
"They got Eli Shirt back, who's a nice player from Zig Zag, and he'll definitely make that team stronger.
"But we missed a trick. We really missed a chance and that's the most disappointing. We did have feedback from people in the crowd who were impressed with the speed and the level of play, so that's a good point out of it."
However, Pat's believe they could have been far better across the last three quarters of the game.
They had come into the game off a thumping 6-0 win over Parkes and were full of confidence that they could deliver the Storm just their second defeat of the season.
Knowing that they fell short of something they were capable of is a tough result for Sharp to reflect on.
"We didn't capitalise on our chances. We could have potentially scored another four," he said.
"Even in the last two quarters we generated a couple more chances. I changed things up a little bit in the last quarter to try and chase the game but they shut us down.
"Because they were undermanned they were happy with the draw."
ST PAT'S 2 drew LITHGOW STORM 2
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