Finals-chasing Central Coast have pulled off an extraordinary fightback from two goals down and a controversial red card to snatch a gutsy 2-2 A-League Men draw with Western Sydney.
Dan Hall smashed home in the 96th minute, off the back of cameos from Garang Kuol and Cy Goddard, to earn the Mariners a point at CommBank Stadium.
Central Coast now sit four points outside the top six, while for Western Sydney, dropping two points late again, days after their late draw with Brisbane, effectively extinguishes their finals hopes for a fifth consecutive season.
"We showed massive character. That epitomised the culture of the club," Mariners coach Nick Montgomery said, noting it showed their 5-0 capitulation to Sydney FC was merely a "blip".
"(It's) a young team, we've had a lot of learning experiences and I asked for character and I thought tonight we showed that in abundance.
"To be honest the chances that we had, we should have taken three points."
Kye Rowles' own goal in his 100th game, when Tate Russell's strike deflected off Jacob Farrell, then the Mariners' centre-back, gave the Wanderers a somewhat fortuitous lead in the 41st minute.
Then, the game turned further in Western Sydney's favour when Lewis Miller took a loose touch and in attempting to regain control of the ball, scraped his studs down Adama Traore's shin and received a yellow card.
Following a VAR intervention, referee Ben Abraham immediately upgraded the card to red.
"Lewis had the ball. When you have the ball and you use your body to protect the ball and someone comes in behind you and tries to kick you and kicks the bottom of your foot - he's not even looking," Montgomery said.
"I honestly thought the referee was gonna go to the VAR and rescind the yellow card, and realise he made a mistake but to send him off, ridiculous.
"If I see back on the video in slow motion and I think differently then I'll say but right now I think it was a ridiculous decision."
Six minutes later, Traore whipped the ball into a dangerous area, where Dimi Petratos nipped in behind Mark Birighitti and toepoked home.
The Mariners' fightback started when in the 62nd minute, Steven Ugarkovic went to ground in an attempt to block Farrell's cutback but the ball hit his arm.
Abraham immediately awarded a penalty and Beni N'Kololo coolly converted.
Petratos hit the crossbar in the 94th and two minutes later, Kuol pounced on the ball, drove forward, and floated it to Goddard, who squared it for Hall to tap home an unlikely equaliser.
"What disappoints me most, it's groundhog day, almost, is that we spoke about what happened last game and we didn't learn from it," coach Mark Rudan said.
"That's what disappoints me the most.
"We didn't do enough to kill the game off, simple as that."
