There were at least two small crumbs of comfort for struggling Dunfermline as they slid to another damaging result at East End Park on Saturday.
The pre-season promotion favourites are now eight points behind League One leaders Stranraer after failing to make the most of a mountain of possession and clear-cut goalscoring opportunities.
They even took the lead through a sublime Ross Forbes free-kick before being pegged back in the second half and then imploding when Andy Geggan got himself sent off for a nonsensical challenge on substitute Andy Rodgers.
Dunfermline have won just twice in their last nine games, but they at least managed to staunch a flow of three straight defeats under new boss John Potter and his predecessor Jim Jefferies.
Potter was also able to welcome back striker Ryan Wallace who made his first start of the season after finally recovering from a double hernia and a stress fracture.
He rippled the side-netting in the first half and was later replaced by Faissal El-Bakhtaoui, but Wallace was simply delighted to be involved again.
“It’s good to be back with the boys and back playing again,” he said.
“I feel fit enough to be playing again, but I’m still a bit rusty and lacking some sharpness.
“The first half passed me by a bit and I started to get tired after half time.
“It was a disappointing result today. We should have been out of sight by half-time, but we didn’t score the goals we needed and you could hear a pin drop in the dressing room after the game. It’s two points dropped rather than one gained, and we were all gutted in there.
“We created so many good chances not even half-chances in the first half, but it’s that old cliche again: if you don’t score goals, then you won’t win games.
“We’re just not doing it in front of goal, so the manager is going to have to look at that and try something different. I’m hoping I can be the answer to our problems, but I need to keep working hard to impress the manager.”
On Geggan’s challenge on Rodgers, Wallace conceded: “It was reckless. Andy is an experienced player and he knows you can’t do things like that.”
Rodgers received a two-match ban earlier this season after baiting Pars fans on Twitter, so the atmosphere was toxic on Saturday when he appeared as a late substitute, but manager Potter admitted: “It was stupid from Andy Geggan, and I’ve told him that.
“It’s an extremely disappointing result for us, but it’s the same story as the rest of the season: you’ve got to kill teams off when you’re on top, and we didn’t do that today. It’s no coincidence you can’t be unlucky all the time, but putting the ball in the back of the net is the most difficult thing to do in football.”