The outcome was not wholly satisfying for Dunfermline Athletic, but they cannot yet be considered a lost cause.

There was enough spirit, and moments of enterprise, for the relegation battle to still be an engrossing contest, even if the home side remain at the bottom of the Clydesdale Bank Premier League despite moving on to the same number of points as Hibernian.

They had to survive periods of alarm against Kilmarnock, but they might also have won in the closing minutes if Cameron Bell had not reached out his left arm to turn away Martin Hardie's fiercely- struck effort. Every point will feel rewarding, but the nature of this display – earnest, animated, defiant – would have been more heartening.

"It's important to see us on the same points as Hibs rather than stuck on the bottom, and it's up to us to build on this now," said Jim McIntyre, the Dunfermline manager.

His side were immediately hampered. Iain Turner, the goalkeeper on loan from Preston North End, suffered a back spasm during the warm-up and had to be replaced by Chris Smith, whose recent form has been calamitous. He spent the first-half kicking with an anxious hesitancy. As if to compensate, the hosts began the game by rejecting any sense of inferiority.

They won 3-0 at Rugby Park last month and were entitled to their conviction. Mostly, though, it was epitomised by the strong, aggressively defiant challenges of Jordan McMillan. The game was robust, played with a gritty purpose, and it took 15 minutes for Andy Kirk to lash a shot at goal. He might have struck the ball out of frustration, but it emphasised the nature of the contest as unflinching.

Despite their predicament, Dunfermline remain convinced of their attacking ability and there was danger in the movement and sharpness of Kirk and Liam Buchanan up front. The latter evaded the defenders to steer a ball across the face of goal that caused consternation.

On a night of occasionally frantic endeavour, neither side gathered any momentum, but the greater frailties belonged to Dunfermline. Lewis Toshney, the full-back on loan at Kilmarnock from Celtic, was allowed too much space down the right and his cross was scrambled clear only to the edge of the area, where James Fowler took a touch before striking at goal. It seemed to take a deflection, as Smith was wrong-footed, which must have felt like a further indignity to the goalkeeper. "With that pitch, some the pass-backs were bouncing bombs," said McIntyre. "He acquitted himself well."

The goal looked to have confounded Dunfermline, and they were subjected to a bout of dominance. Shiels, with a curling shot then a drive from the edge of the area, drew saves from Smith, while Paddy Boyle had to cover diligently from left-back to block a Paul Heffernan effort.

Kilmarnock have misplaced their ability to be clinical, though, and merely by digging in Dunfermline found the means to recover. They were making an untidy job of clearing another attack when David Graham gathered the ball deep inside his own half and surged upfield. As the visitors' back-line pushed up to meet him, he slid the ball through and Kirk ran on to it from deep. The striker showed the presence of mind to clip a shot beyond Bell, who had been rash in haring out of position, and the ball bounced into the far corner of the net.

The equaliser was scored on the verge of the interval, and it was inevitable Dunfermline would carry their renewed confidence into the second-half. They still had to endure a nervous moment by Smith, and some frantic defending, but Buchanan ought to have taken advantage of the ball ricocheting to him in Kilmarnock's penalty area only for his shot to skip wide. When Smith offered a form of redemption by blocking a close range Heffernan effort, Dunfermline might have dared to feel emboldened.

Yet they still had to rely on the goalkeeper unconvincingly pushing Garry Hay's free-kick wide, then Mark Kerr hacking the ball off the goal-line from Manuel Pascali's header.

"You don't always get what you deserve," Kenny Shiels, the Kilmarnock manager, said. "Football can be a cruel game."