Fifers boss Gary Naysmith knows his side cannot continue to pass up the amount of chances they are creating after being held by Montrose at Bayview.
It was a point which brought to an end a three-game losing streak, but Naysmith reckoned it could have been more had his side managed to stick away a few of the chances they created.
Jamie Insall gave East Fife the lead before Gary Fraser replied for the visitors.
Naysmith said: “When you create as many chances as we did then you have to score more than one goal.
“And at the same time we’ve limited them to maybe two or three efforts at goal so that has to be a clean sheet.
“We had nine shots on target so we have to score more. It’s not going for us just now.”
Both sides huffed and puffed during the opening half-hour but neither created any clear-cut chances.
The deadlock was broken on 35 minutes when on-loan Hibs man Insall put East Fife ahead.
Some neat play on the edge of the box saw Insall get the ball behind the Montrose line and he made no mistake, firing past Jordan Millar.
The lead was short-lived, though, as just five minutes later Fraser netted.
The equaliser cracked the game into life with both sides presented with good chances.
Fraser should have done better when one-on-one with home keeper Darren Hill and Graham Webster cracked the post late on for Paul Hegarty’s men. East Fife’s Nathan Austin hit the woodwork, too, with a nice lob.
Montrose boss Hegarty said : “I’m pleased because we’ve had a bit of a sticky spell over the past few weeks.
“We’re looking a bit more solid now, although we got a bit of a rub of the green in the second half.”