Cambridge boss Neil Harris demanded his side show more ruthlessness and resilience after they were held by Harrogate.
The hosts totally dominated the first half but only led at half-time by a solitary goal from Louis Appere.
Harrogate equalised early in the second period through Stephen Duke-McKenna and the hosts were unable to respond.
“When we’re so on top, so dominant, so good for 35 minutes, we have to be more ruthless in those moments. We have to be 3-0 up in the first half,” said Harris.
“There’s nothing but disappointment in me today. We can’t be night and day, we can’t be that good for one half and then disappointing for the next half-hour, it just can’t happen.
“I have to have more leadership in the group than that. I have to have better resilience.
“To concede like we did is so poor. I can’t keep praising my players and saying how good a team we’re going to be and what we can achieve and then concede goals like that again.
“We switched off for two minutes at Swindon and let two goals in, we switched off for 30 seconds today and we let a goal in. That’s not the mentality that gets you a clean sheet.
“I’ve just said to the players I demand more. I won’t rest until we get the 90-minute performance week after week after week.”
Harrogate boss Simon Weaver described his team’s performance as “chalk and cheese” between the first and second half.
“The first half we weren’t at it,” he said. “We didn’t execute the gameplan well enough, we didn’t commit to it. It was half-hearted with how we tried to stop them.
“But we managed to get through at 1-0 and at 1-0 the game’s never over. We tried to redress the situation and straight away they handled it well and they got intensity around the ball.
“You’ve just got to commit. We’ve done it in other games, but for some reason we didn’t come out of the blocks fast in that respect and we weren’t clear.
“Maybe in previous years we may have come into a game like this being 1-0 down and it might have been two at half-time and come out a bit flattened by it.
“Today was different. It’s an opportunity to show a different side of Harrogate Town and we did just that and we can be proud of all the efforts second half.”
