Neill Collins was left stunned after Hamilton Accies’ injury-time leveller denied him a maiden victory as Raith Rovers manager.
Despite conceding a hotly-disputed penalty after just 28 seconds, the Stark’s Park side deservedly earned a 3-1 lead going into the last 15 minutes.
A sensational Lewis Stevenson strike cancelled out Kevin O’Hara’s spot-kick before on-loan Hearts winger Finlay Pollock snatched a debut goal.
Dylan Easton nudged in a third for the dominant home side and a first win in five games – and a first of the Collins reign – appeared on the cards.
But Connor Smith’s deflected effort set up a nervy finale in the new manager’s home debut.
And Oli Shaw – who Collins had as a player at former club Barnsley – hooked in the leveller in the fourth minute of time added on to snatch a dramatic 3-3 draw.
Neill Collins on the 3-3 draw
Collins said: “When you’ve been in football a long time, you think you’ve seen it all – and then I don’t know how I’m standing here with a draw.
“But when you concede the goals we do… it shouldn’t take three goals to win at home.
“At 3-1, we were still creating chances. We had an offside goal [from Callum Smith], Dylan Easton had a couple of chances and Aidan Connolly.
“And I can’t be too hard on them and say they should put them away.
“But, still, at 3-1 we should have won comfortably. It’s hard to sum up right now.
“We really wanted the three points, that was the most important thing, and then the performance.
“We certainly got the performance and I thought if we performed like that we would have got the three points. But unfortunately not.”
On Hamilton’s controversial penalty
Collins said: “There were probably three mistakes on our behalf leading to it. It just seems to be where we’re at.
“We could not have started the game much worse. A long ball, we don’t win the first one and could maybe deal with the second one a bit better.
“But I thought Kev [Dabrowski] probably did enough and got the ball. I thought it was soft.
“To be fair to the players, from that moment on we took the ascendancy.
“It can be really difficult at home when you’ve started the season the way we have. But I thought from that moment on to the 90th minute we were fantastic.”
On Lewis Vaughan’s injury
Collins said: “What a huge blow with Lewis Vaughan. He was outstanding in training this week and he’s obviously a key player for the team.
“That looks as if it could be serious, which is really frustrating for him and the team.
“I think it was his hamstring but it’s obviously very, very early to assess. I’ve not even had a chance to speak to the medical staff about that yet.
“When you’ve dealt with that [Vaughan’s knee injuries] you’ve shown you can come back from these things. But it’s certainly not what we needed.”
On angry exchange with Accies assistant Darian Mackinnon at full-time
Collins said: “Emotions were high and I don’t think they were happy with the way I celebrated a couple of our goals.
“Maybe they were correct. It was my first home game and I was really looking for that first three points.
“If they think that was out of order I apologise for that.”
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