The crowd were thinking they were watching a repeat of the tepid draw with the Knights for much of the first half.
When MacNicol weaved his way to the edge of the area with little opposition to fire past Konstantinou's left a minute before the break, the crowd were searching for the nearest noose as relief from the torture of the substandard pretence for passionate football.
No sooner had the hangmen made their obliging appearance, than Gonzales curled a freekick of quality past Jevdjevic's left to bring a stay of execution.
[Gonzales was to immediately call for the stretcher when a reached too far a ball, trying to turn it round an opponent, early in the second half. Probably a grooin muscle injury and it didn't look good. Prenzoski and Howarth (later) came on to add pep to the Cosmos.]
The break must have refreshed the home side significantly. The match changed from forgettable to an edge of the seat and standing, yelling, progression of incidents. An almost certain 79th min hand ball by a Gippsland defender in the heart of his penalty area brought howls of protest from Cosmos players and thunderous booing for the referee (Breeze I think) when he played on.
Time and again, the Cosmos launched raids on the visitor's goal with PJ Roberts (3 times) and De Jesus (twice) seeming certain to score - only to be denied by good keeping or their fractional misjudgement.
Gippsland threatened a couple of times from freekicks, but this was Cosmos' half and a game they did all but win. Still, history will record Cosmos' third 1-1 draw in a row and their fourth undefeated.
The crowd gave the team a midly charitable but mostly deserved standing ovation at full time - though in truth it was more for the increased pace, effort and reasonable quality football of that second half than the result.
It was great to catch up with Tom Anderson and a number of noisy Gippslanders - Marty the Smarty is a real character - particularly after a few drinks!