Captain Simon Colosimo believes Sunday’s 2-2 draw with the Phoenix in Wellington was Melbourne Heart’s best away performance of the season.
Heart arrived in Wellington without creative midfielder Gerald Sibon, who is sitting out a two-match ban, and Aziz Behich (suspended) but welcomed back Colosimo from injury and Dean Heffernan from suspension for the match at Westpac Stadium.
After going behind to an early Chris Greenacre goal, the visitors responded strongly to take a 2-1 lead into the break after John Aloisi converted from the penalty spot and Matt Thompson showed good strength and footwork to beat Ben Sigmund and Troy Hearfield in the box to score.
Leo Bertos levelled matters in the 59th minute to hand the Phoenix the Australasian club record for the longest run of unbeaten games at a venue (24 matches), taking them past Sydney United’s record which was achieved in the National Soccer League between 1996 and 1999.
“I’ve got to really hand it to our boys we’ve achieved a few things tonight,” Colosimo said. “We came from behind, away from home, and our results and performances away from home haven’t been good.”
“We really stood up and we were good for our point and touch and go for the three.”
“There’s no doubt (it was our best away performance of the season).”
Short-term signing Adrian Zahra made his first start for the club and showed plenty of good touches on the ball.
It was his strong into the box that resulted in the penalty when he was brought down by Manny Muscat on the edge of the box.
“I thought Adrian Zahra in his first start was excellent,” said Colosimo.
“As disappointing as it is that we had to make changes, it’s great that in his first start he comes in and does really well and it just proves we are on the right track.”
Heart coach John van ‘t Schip felt the draw was a fair result, although admitted there was some disappointment that his side hadn’t been able to hang on for all three points.
“Leading 2-1 we came under pressure at the beginning of the second half and we were lucky in some circumstances but we came through that,” he said.
“Then they scored a goal that was one of the goals they know (how to score) with the wind. You could see the ball taking a sharp move the other side and it was 2-2.”
“Towards the end of the game it could have gone either way. We had a few opportunities … but on the other hand they were also dangerous on the break.
“We got a result and we always knew it was going to be difficult here. The statistics show that.
“But after leading 2-1 you want to have more but that wasn’t the case.”
