The Newcastle Jets defeated the Melbourne Heart 1-nil at Latrobe Stadium in their pre-season friendly on Friday night.
With exactly 50 days until the Hyundai A-League 2011/12 Season gets underway, the Newcastle Jets defeated the Melbourne Heart 1-nil at Latrobe Stadium, Morwell in their pre-season friendly on Friday night.
Local boy Jobe Wheelhouse captained the Jets to victory, with Coach Branko Culina happy with the hit out.
“The boys played well tonight. Importantly we came out of it without injury and the win,” he said.
The Heart side were on top in the early few minutes of the match until a 10th minute free kick by Marko Jesic tricked Melbourne keeper Mattei to go inside the right far post. Jesic is having a great pre-season, with this goal making it four on the board for the past four matches.
The Jets went in to the half time break leading 1-nil. Despite some strong defensive and attacking pressure from both sides, the Jets were able to hold on to the early lead and take the match.
Newcastle looked dangerous on many occasions, especially from set pieces with Jeremy Brockie getting in good field position and beating his man, but shooting just wide on both occasions.
The pressure continued by the Jets, pressing the Heart right to the full time whistle.
Coach Culina made full use of his full bench, replacing starting keeper Matt Nash with Ben Kennedy and Labinot Haliti with Ali Abbas at half time. While Nikolai Topor-Stanley and Ben Kantarovski played well, getting through 60 minutes before being replaced by Taylor Regan and James Virgili respectively.
Newcastle Jets Starting XI – 19.Nash, 4.Topor-Stanley, 5.Calvano, 6.Kantarovski, 8.Brockie, 11.Elrich, 12. Wheelhouse, 13.Sung-Hwan, 14. Haliti, 18.Jesic, 23. Griffith.
Bench: 1.Kennedy, 2.Regan, 17.Virgili, 22. Abbas.
Melbourne Heat Starting XI – 13.Mattei, 2.Marrone, 3.Hamill, 6.Thompson, 8.Sarkies, 11.Terra, 15.Williams, 16.Behich, 17.Hoffman, 22.Kalmar, 23.Dugandzic
Bench: 9.Maycon, 14.Ibrahim, 21.Taseski, 25.Blumgart, 26. Konstantanidis
The Jets next outing will be against Lake Macquarie at Macquarie Park on Wednesday night.
