ROB Scott watched his Grimsby Town side relinquish top spot in the Conference – but insisted there are a lot more twists and turns to come.
The Mariners went into Saturday's clash at Ebbsfleet United sitting proudly at the Blue Square Bet Premier summit.
But Newport County's lunchtime victory over Gateshead, followed by Town's 1-1 draw in Kent, saw them slip to second in the table behind the Welsh side.
Despite that, joint boss Scott believes possession of the coveted sole automatic promotion spot will change hands a few more times yet.
And he says Saturday's battling draw at Stonebridge Road could prove to be a valuable result at the end of the campaign.
"Of course we want to be at the top of the league, but it doesn't really matter – we can only do what we can do.
"We dropped a couple of points on Saturday, but what we haven't done is lost the game, so we'll tuck ourselves in nicely.
"Everyone keeps banging on about being top – I'm only interested in what position we're in come the last game of the season.
"But we're up there and we'll continue to do what we do. As I've said all along, we'll just keep going about our business and let everyone else talk about being top.
"There are a lot more twists and turns to come, but it's a game on the road and I think big teams will go to Ebbsfleet and probably get turned over between now and the end of the season.
"We haven't lost, Wrexham did, Dartford did – although Forest Green won and so did Newport."
Marcus Marshall's superb third minute strike gave the Mariners the lead in the south east on Saturday and looked to have set the visitors on the way to another away day triumph.
However, Liam Daish's men pulled level just before half-time and were full value for their point after an end-to-end second half.
"It was like two games in one really," Scott added.
"I thought we started the game poorly and in the first couple of minutes we put ourselves under massive pressure.
"Then we scored a great goal and we dominated for 35 minutes, played some really good stuff and had a couple of other chances.
"But they came into it for the last ten minutes of the first half and that was our downfall really.
"We had a chance to clear the ball on more than one occasion in the build-up to their goal.
"We didn't take up the opportunity to turn them around and squeeze ourselves up the pitch with a couple of minutes to go before half-time.
"We were left ruing that really, because the players came in half-time and they were a little bit downhearted with the fact that they'd done so well and so badly all in one half.
"The second half was like a game of basketball – 'you have an attack, we'll have an attack'.
"The problem was that everyone was bombing forward and then we'd lose the ball and everyone would have to fly back.
"Yes, you want to win the game, but you have to pick your times to go and do that.
"We've seen in the past that they fly forward and are so eager to win the game, but we leave ourselves vulnerable at the back, and that was the case on Saturday.
"It was probably a fair result and we may look back on and think it was a good point on the road – although we feel we could have done enough to get three if we'd carried on playing as we did in the first half."
