"We came here to get three points but at the end of the day we'll take a point."
Athletic coach Jason King was equally disappointed, but if he wanted to look for a positive he could find it in the recent unbeaten run against City remaining intact.
"It's disappointing but it's not the worst result we could've had," King said.
"It's not a loss – it's a point and we're heading in the right direction."
Neither side really settled into the free-flowing football which made both so good to watch last season.
Athletic were comfortable in defence and in the middle of the park but couldn't get numbers forward, often leaving Scott Burney isolated up front with nowhere to go.
At the other end, City had the luxury of more time on the ball and in enemy territory early on but were limited to just a couple of shots on target, two from Latham Barry catching the eye.
The match ambled through to the 70th minute mark with little in the way of chances and more than seven cards dished out as lax discipline cost both sides.
City went down to 10 men in the 80th minute, just as Athletic started to look more in charge, but they were unable to convert that into a goal as the sides took a point each to open their season.
"Bit disappointing, but when you get down to 10 men I suppose you take a point," Bell said.
"I think everyone had a good shift, it's just something we've got to take on the chin. We've just got to move on a look forward to next week."
King said he would've liked to see "more football played" and better discipline from both sides.
"As a spectator I would've thought it was boring, to be honest, if I'm being brutal about it," he said.
King said his side just couldn't create the opportunity to score.
"The other side of it is City are looking a stronger unit that maybe they started off last year.
"Good for them, they're going to take some points off other teams in the league."
Without Quinn Mailman and Josh Smith – two of their strongest attacking threats last season – Athletic seemed to lack some bite and King said other players would need to step up to fill that role in 2019.
"We might not have one person scoring the goals, we're going to have to spread the load a bit more," he said.
"We do have players that are quite capable of scoring goals.
"Ryan [Holden] is usually up around the top of the goal scoring statistics as well.
"We've got Jordan Gilmore who's put a few away in previous games. He'd clinched games for us, even Jude [Hiri].
"We do have players but, yeah, we've got to get a bit more creative. That's the reality now.
"We don't have one or two players that we know are going to bag us a good amount so we've got to be more creative and involve more of our attacking five or six to get the goals."
King felt his side started to gain a bit more control towards the end but failed to take advantage of having an extra man.
"Again we just couldn't quite finish it. We'd get to that final third but couldn't get the ball in the right areas.
"We weren't creative enough to find little opportunities."
Athletic are back at Wembley Park on Saturday hosting North End while City travel to Hawkes Bay on Sunday to take on Napier Marist.
In other matches, defending champions Palmerston North Marist hammered Napier Marist 8-2 on Palmerston North, North End beat Palmerston North Boys High School 6-2 and Red Sox Manawatu defeated Massey University 3-1.
New Plymouth Rangers were set to host Hokowhitu FC on this afternoon.
