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Ben Greenhalgh saw enough to believe Margate can finish the job in their FA Cup replay at Horsham.
The sides drew 1-1 in the third qualifying round at Hartsdown Park on Saturday, with the replay taking place on Tuesday night.
Gate led through Ibrahim Olutade but the Isthmian Premier Hornets rescued a draw when Ola Oluwamide struck with 20 minutes left.
Player-boss Greenhalgh was encouraged by his team’s performance, with Margate the last Isthmian South East side standing going into Monday’s final qualifying round draw.
“I’m really positive at how frustrated and disappointed we are that we haven’t beaten a very good team in the league above,” said Greenhalgh.
“Horsham had a very good spell between 55-70 minutes and they got their goal towards the end of that.
“At that point, any team from a league below against a team with the quality of Horsham could crumble, and actually we went the other way.
“We pushed on and looked like we were going to be the team that scored, so there’s a lot of positives to take.
“We’re in the hat, we get to find out what draw we could possibly get and, if we’re being honest, we’re quite confident going into the replay.
“We’re quite happy with what we did but I think we can offer a lot more.
“There’s lots of stuff we can work on tactically to get those fine margins right but I think if you look at it today, we’ve created the most chances, we’ve had the most opportunities at goal and Tom (Wray, Margate goalkeeper) hasn’t had too much to do.
“Obviously their right winger was the biggest danger, and we’ve played against Ola plenty of times.
“He did cause a problem and that’s what you’re going to get from teams in the league above with such quality, so I think we have to accept there’s going to be moments, but over 90 minutes we probably looked like the side that were going to win it.”
Olutade lost his man from Greenhalgh’s free-kick as Margate broke the deadlock six minutes before half-time.
Horsham might question their defending but the Gate striker deserved credit for being alive to the delivery.
“We’ve worked on that,” said Greenhalgh.
“We’ve been asking for players to have that little extra desire because there were moments at the start of the season where we were putting a lot of balls into the box and the other team weren’t getting there first and neither were we, it was just flying through.
“In that position, Ibz knows where I’m putting it and he’s got on the end of it and scored a really good goal.”
Margate were solid defensively and almost went 2-0 up - Harvey Brand with a header cleared off the line - before Oluwamide’s equaliser.
Greenhalgh praised the performances of centre-backs Lewis Knight and skipper Harry Hudson.
“I think our biggest credit is how resilient we are,” he said.
“We don’t look like we’re going to let in many goals and against a team like Horsham, with the quality they have, we’ve only let in one.
“We’d love another clean sheet but if we continue our goals against record, we’re going to have a good season.
“Harry and Lewis have always been a good partnership, they’ve just never quite had the opportunity here at Margate and probably never quite had the sort of partnership we want to create with them.
“You can’t forget we’ve got Tyrone Sterling as well, who’s one of the most experienced centre-halves in non-league, and he’s come in five or six times already and been just as effective, so between the three of them, I don’t think you’re getting much better in this division.
“They’ve bought into what we want to do and they’re a massive part of it, so we need to keep them firing and keep them getting clean sheets because that’s why we’re in the position we’re in.”
