Mariners were held to a frustrating home draw with the North Queensland Fury - despite a first minute goal at the Bluetongue Stadium.

Central Coast missed a chance to move back into the Hyundai A-League top three and coach Lawrie McKinna said: "We didn't deserve to win. You get gutted when you deserve to win and you don't, but in the second half we knew they'd play the long ball and put us under pressure, which they did, and our intensity dropped off."

Much of the 8,043-strong crowd were still finding their seats when Matt Simon put the Mariners ahead, with his first goal of the campaign, and the second fastest goal in the history of the Hyundai A-League.

North Queensland got proceedings underway, and Chris Tadrosse, desperate to put in a strong performance against his former club, mistimed a back-pass, allowing Simon to pick up the scraps, and hold off two defenders to finish powerfully into the top of the net, all within the space of just 14 seconds.

"I wish we scored every week in the first minute. We should have been good enough to go on and win the game two or three nil," McKinna added.

Adam Kwasnik, Simon Brad Porter and Dean Heffernan all went close as the Mariners controlled the tempo but a second goal was not added before the break. After the interval a Kwasnik effort was ruled for offside and Nigel Boogaard went close before the Fury hit back with 15 minutes left.

The visitors had Robbie Fowler in their side but it was big striker Daniel McBreen, whose previous clubs include Falkirk and Scunthorpe United, who netted, rising highest to head home off the underside of the crossbar.

McKinna added: "We've had two opportunities to go top of the league and not taken them. We had a chance to win against a team which is bottom to get ourselves right back in the mix over the next couple of weeks to challenge again and we let ourselves down, and the supporters who were great."