The point earned from the 1-1 draw with Perth Glory at the Members Equity Stadium enabled the Mariners to reclaim pole position from Queensland with only two rounds to play and McKinna is confident that his side will not relinquish top spot again.

“Things are looking up,” said the Scot. “We’re one point clear at the top and having two home games coming up sets us up nicely. It’s up to us now, we don’t have to rely on Queensland slipping up.

“We’ve been up there all year and the players and myself believe that we deserve to win the minor premiership.

"I know it’s a big thing to win the Grand Final, but for me it’s a big achievement to be top at the end and it qualifies you for Asia just the same as winning the Grand Final.”

Substitute Nikita Rukavytsya’s fifth goal of the season cancelled out John Hutchinson’s first-half strike for the visitors and McKinna admitted he was happy to take a point as Glory finished the stronger.

“Obviously we’d have liked to have come here and got three points”, he said, “and in the first-half we looked very comfortable.

"In the second-half, Perth bombed forward and caused us problems and we had to defend desperately at times, but overall I’m happy with a draw away from home.”

Perth boss Dave Mitchell, meanwhile, singled out Stan Lazaridis for special praise following his impressive return to competitive action.

The former Socceroo surprisingly completed the full ninety minutes and confounded doubts regarding his match fitness by actually became more influential as the game wore on.

“I thought Stan performed really well tonight”, said Mitchell. “He showed his class with his delivery.

"I expected to take him off ten or fifteen minutes into the second-half, but he indicated to us that he was okay to carry on and I thought he got better as the game went on.

"He’s a great character to have around and it was great to see him back out there”.

Mitchell also expressed his admiration for Simon Colosimo after revealing that he offered the club skipper the opportunity not to play in the game following the hostile reception he received from sections of the club’s support last week.

“I’m pleased that Simon had enough character to say that he wanted to play and I’m very happy with the way that the crowd responded to him tonight,” said Mitchell.

“I don’t think anyone in a purple shirt deserved what he had to put up with last week. It was encouraging that the crowd got behind him and I thank him for his contribution.”

On a generally encouraging night for the ladder’s bottom club, Jason Petkovic came through his first full game of the campaign unscathed and turned in a solid performance, but the yellow card picked up by Leo Bertos means that the Kiwi international will miss next week’s home game with Adelaide through suspension.