Maitland FC shared the points with Broadmeadow Magic in the under-done Magpies' first game in six weeks.
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Maitland led in the 21st minute when Joel Wood found the bottom corner of goals with a strike after evading three defenders.
Mitch Oxborrow equalised in the 67th minute with a sweetly struck free kick from the top of the area.
"I was over the moon. The boys did very well<" Magpies coach Mick Bolch said.
"We led 1-0 at half-time and did well first half with another couple of good chances.
Woody had another good chance and Jimmy Thompson had a runaway, one-on-one chance which the keeper saved.
"I was really happy with the first half performance and the second half but we were always going to hit the wall after playing one game in six weeks.
"Match fitness was always going to come into it.
"We were under the pump for some periods in the second half and the boys did really well.
"We checked our shape, we scrambled well when we had to and got a bit of luck a few times but going into there I would have taken a point any day of the week with what we've had over the last four weeks."
The Magpies started their season with a bye and then had wash-out games against Valentine in round two and Lambton in round four, punctuated by a 2-1 loss to Weston at Bear Park
"They've got two spare weekends this year for wash-out games. One is in May, about the 5th of May and the other is in August, so the two wash-out games are just being replayed on those weekends so it doesn't give us a logjam of midweek games with the FFA Cup coming up," Bolch said.
"That gets drawn on Monday so we will have FFA Cup commitments in the next couple of weeks.
"The only way it is affecting us at the moments is that you can't replicate match fitness and we are behind in that respect.
"It showed on Saturday. For the first 10 minutes of the game we were chasing shadows. It was their fourth game so they've had time together.
"We didn't play the two trials before the season we had planned and have only played against Weston in the four weeks to start. The Weston game is the only game we'd had in six weeks.
"We are not going to get where we are meant to be for another four or five games, that's the logic of it.
"They showed a bit of grit yesterday, after what was an ordinary performance against the Bears.
They showed real effort right across the park, particularly when you take into account (Ryan Clarke) Clarkey was injured, Grant Brown was suspended and we only had (Alex Read) Ready from the bench because he was struggling with an injury.
"It was a good performance. Woody worked incredibly hard, he was very good."
The road ahead features games against the other three top four teams going into this round starting with Charlestown on Sunday at Lisle Carr Oval, a five-day break before playing Edgeworth at Cooks Square Park on Good Friday, Lake Macquarie on April 27 and then a catch-up game at Maitland against Lambton Jaffas on May 5.