Kilmarnock's new manager Lee Clark tried to take the positives out of the 0-0 draw with Dundee but had goalkeeper Jamie MacDonald to thank for preserving a draw in the Ladbrokes Scottish premiership encounter.
The home side had the better of the early exchanges but had to rely on MacDonald to deny Dundee.
The new Rugby Park manager said: " There were lots of positives to take out of the game, the application of the players, the desire, the quality of football and the tempo we played.
"If we had come in at half-time ahead, it would have been deserved."
"The frustrating thing is that we put on Kris Boyd, one of the most prolific scorers in the Scottish game, and we stop putting crosses into the area. We changed the mentality.
"The reason I put him on was because we were getting round the outside, putting plenty of crosses in and I knew he would get on the end of one of them and score.
"For some reason, we have an asset like that and we change the mentality. That's a technical aspect that I can help the players with going forward."
Clark praised his side 's defensive resolve after they opened his term in charge with a point.
" I'm pleased with the blocks and defending of crosses from our two centre-backs in particular," said Clark.
"If you're going to be successful, you need to be strong defensively and we've only lost two goals in our last four games, both against Rangers from set pieces, and the players seemed to learn from that today, they were stronger from set plays."
Clark's side did tire in the final quarter of the match, a criticism also levelled against them in midweek when they lost an injury time goal to knock them out of the Scottish Cup.
He said: "The fitness won't change overnight, we can only gradually do it. I can run and run and run them, but they'd have no fitness left for the match and probably pick up injuries."
Josh Magennis almost gave his new boss the perfect start but his touch from a tight angle beat Scott Bain but did not carry enough pace and was cleared off the line.
Magennis and Conrad Balatoni had further chances before Bain produced a brilliant save to stop Craig Slater's deflected free-kick finding the net.
Kilmarnock's Lee Hodson got in blocks to deny Rory Loy and K ane Hemmings either side of half-time and MacDonald threw himself to his left to claw the ball away to deny Hemmings after another swift Dundee counter-attack.
Dundee's centre-backs almost combined to score in the 90th minute as Darren O'Dea found space at the far post and nodded the ball across for Thomas Konrad but his header drifted inches wide.
Dundee boss Paul Hartley was satisfied with the improvement in his side's defensive performance ahead of a crucial week with a Scottish Cup replay against Dumbarton offering the carrot of a tie against Rangers.
Hartley said: "On the road, it's another point to where we want to be. It was pleasing to keep the clean sheet.
"It's important, we've not had many of those but we're starting to build that now since Darren O'Dea's come in.
"He's really steadied the ship in terms of experience and his communication and organisation.
"It was one of our problems, we were really good going forward but we were a little bit vulnerable at the back.
"But Darren's come in and we've re-jigged our system a wee bit which is working well for us just now."
Source: PA
