“We were feeling very good and confident at the half,” Cooper said.

Seven minutes into the second half, however, saw Mika Kruse get issued a yellow card, which perhaps took at least some of the momentum away, having to play a man down for 10 crucial minutes.

“Having Mika out — you’re always going to be less potent on the edge,” Cooper said. “If you can get there you can perhaps break them down and cause some issues.”

Seattle put two penalty kicks on the board to take a 20-15 lead before tacking on a try in the 73rd minute to take a commanding 27-15 margin.

But instead of packing it in, Utah honed in from there in an attempt to cut the lead to seven or less and gain what could prove a crucial bonus point. Its efforts paid off in the 79th minute when Mano touched the ball down off an assist from Zion Going to cut the lead to 27-20.

Seattle then staged a furious offensive possession right near the try line, although Utah was able to withstand all of it in securing that crucial one point.

“We talk about Utah-built and I think we showed that at the end — a lot of courage,” Cooper said. “There were a lot of positives in this game, although the result wasn’t positive…I’m really proud of how we showed at the end there.”

With the loss, Utah falls to four points behind third-place Houston in the battle for the final playoff spot in the Western Conference despite beating the SaberCats on both occasions this season. It puts the Warriors in a tough position with just two rounds remaining in the regular season although overcoming the deficit certainly isn’t impossible.

“Getting one point is disappointing, but there’s still 160 minutes to go,” Cooper said. “…Our job at hand is now to focus on Chicago. We get a win there and then go to New York and then see how it turns out. That one point is not what we wanted, but it could come in handy.”