WESTERN NSW has revived its hopes of playing finals football this season on the back of a 1-all draw with National Premier Leagues 4 heavyweights Fraser Park.
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After starting the season with three consecutive wins - its best start to a campaign in more than five years - Western suffered back-to-back defeats.
They didn't score in either of those losses and doubt started to creep in, but on Saturday at Proctor Park Western dispelled those doubts.
"At the start of the day if you said we were going to get a 1-all against the team that's coming first in the comp and after the couple of weeks they'd had - they'd won 5-0 and 4-0 the last two games - and obviously our last couple of games hadn't been as positive as we would've liked, I would have said 'Yep, for sure'," Western coach Mark Rooke said.
"We certainly could have come away with the victory, but in saying that, they had their opportunities to win too. I think 1-all at the end of the night was probably fair enough.
"It was good to see a good smile on the boys' faces again, knowing that they'd not turned to rubbish overnight.
"I think they were thinking that, they were thinking 'What's going on?'. Our first three games were so good, not the next two, what changed?'. So it was good to see them come out with a positive mindset."
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Western took the lead on the stroke of half-time, a long clearance from goalkeeper Bryce Deaton being knocked on by Adam Scimone, which saw Paul Long get in behind the Fraser Park defence.
From 18 yards out Long produced a clinical finish.
The equaliser for Fraser Park came via Cam Philpot in the 69th minute and while both sides pressed hard for a winner, 1-all is how it finished.
Rooke was satisfied with the performance, but knows there are still areas in which Western can improve.
"It was a good point and well earned by the boys. The little formation change we had and the boys worked on during the week certainly paid dividends I think and it's something we'll be working on further," he said.
"We certainly set up well and did well enough to nullify the threats they posed. Look, they were a good attacking side and had some really good players up in that front third of the pitch.
"But we could have done better with the ball again and that's going be be something we continually work on because we just haven't been at times good enough with it."
The result sees Western sitting sixth on the ladder, but Rooke's side only trails competition leaders University of NSW by four points.
UNSW is one of the four remaining games Western has to play, the others being against ninth-placed Prospect, fourth placed Nepean and the winless Granville Rage.
"If we had won that match, held on and won 1-0, we could have been sitting second. It is very close having a one-round shoot-out so to speak, so leading into our last four games it's important to get a couple of wins on the bounce because it will shoot you right up the table," Rooke said.
Western plays Prospect United, a team which has won just once through seven rounds, at Blacktown on Saturday evening.
