Dunedin Technical tripped at Ocean Grove where Grants Braes earned an unlikely 1-1 draw in the Footballsouth Premier league on Saturday.
Technical's five-point lead at the top now seems more fragile after bottom team Braes grabbed its welcome point, and Mike Fridge must now smell the breath of a chasing pack.
Technical has 34 points, Caversham and Roslyn-Wakari have 29 and Mosgiel has 28, with all those teams now ruing some silly points they conceded earlier this season.
But with only five games to play, Technical would need to collapse to let the pack catch up.
Braes' defiant effort was aided by an own goal from Technical, and the one maroon constant was Aaron Burgess, almost inevitably saving blushes by scoring his 24th league goal of the season.
Caversham kept the heat on by beating University 6-1 at the Caledonian Ground.
The students were well in the hunt during the first half. However, coach Richard Murray's side excelled in squeezing mistakes among the Varsity ranks with yet another sharp display of closing down, and pressuring any student in possession of the ball.
In the midfield boiler room, Hamish Chang and Seamus Ryder set standards in pace and aggression that prised open a 23rd-minute chance for Anton Ross to dart through and score.
Hurling giant throw-ins was not Tom Jackson's only attacking weapon, and his spring-heeled challenges upset centerbacks Jeremy Wilkinson and Todd Marwick.
Jackson went on to score twice.
Ryder joined in, as did Patrick Fleming with another excellent free kick that dipped inside keeper Danniel Becheri's goalpost, and even coach Murray indulged by coming on late and heading a goal.
Luke Macris finished off a low left wing-cross by Jeff Potrich to get Varsity on the scoresheet, but coach Luiz Uehara promised tougher demands on his players in future.
"We have not trained for three weeks, and it showed in the last 20 minutes. Students returning home for the holidays will no longer be acceptable if our club is to mount a serious challenge in the FPL," Uehara said.
Murray was more than pleased with Caversham's performance.
"We had three guys out, and still managed to give game time to the likes of Tim Horner, and all the bench had a run."
At a windswept Forrester Park, Roslyn-Wakari gained revenge on Northern for the loss in May with a comprehensive 5-1 win.
Despite losing Tim Mather and Max Pollok, Roslyn dominated and once again Mike Cunningham was a key factor, spreading play for goals by James Watson, James Govan, Fraser Cameron, Aajay Cunningham and himself.
Mosgiel bounced back with a vengeance to annihilate Queenstown 11-1, after losing consecutive matches to Varsity and Technical.
Mike McGarry's team has consistently played well this season, but struggled to score goals. Perhaps the drought is over.
Another resurrection is happening at Sunnyvale, where Green Island has stitched together three wins on the trot after failing to win at all in the previous 12 matches.
This week's victim was Spirit FC from Invercargill, which scored through Stu Kent after five minutes, but Island hit back when Nathan Gunn equalised and Mike Court headed the winner from a corner "Perhaps opposing teams are not taking us seriously enough and are paying the price," Green Island coach Rod Fleming said.
"We can still play better than this, and our second-half fightback was a great team effort, superbly led by our man of the match, Cody Robinson."
