Melbourne Victory coach Jim Magilton applauded his team’s effort in their narrow defeat to Brisbane, but also admitted that their execution had been lacking.
Melbourne Victory coach Jim Magilton applauded his team’s effort in their narrow defeat to Brisbane, but also admitted that their execution had been lacking.
The 3-2 loss will go down as another missed opportunity for the star-studded Victory to make their push for finals qualification, yet they battled the defending champions to the brink on their home turf and could have snuck a draw if Carlos Hernandez’s 70th-minute thunderbolt went under the crossbar instead of into it.
Speaking post match Magilton praised the character shown in chasing the game after the second of Harry Kewell’s two goals took them within one, but couldn’t forgive the laxity in conceding three goals in the first half.
“Scoring when we did gave us an opportunity to go for another goal and I thought we did, so the players showed a lot of character to come back into the game and give us a real opportunity, so from that point of view, yeah, I’m pleased,” he said.
“(But there were) three poor goals defensively. If you’re going to concede goals against any team in that manner then you’re going to give yourself a mountain to climb to get back into it, especially a team like Brisbane that pride themselves on possession of the football.
“There’s certainly things to work on and to take out of the game, but we finished the game in a positive manner.
“We haven’t got an awful lot of time to break it all down and start again because we’ve got to be ready to go again next week.”
If Magilton was looking to take an optimistic perspective, he had to search no further than the performance of marquee man Harry Kewell.
The 33-year-old continued his end-of-season build in form, exhibiting enough pace to unsettle the Brisbane defence and burying his two goals with world class precision.
Magilton said he would have liked to have kept Kewell in the action for longer than the 75 minutes he did, but the finisher had given his all and needed to be conserved for the remainder of the season.
“We want the ball to fall to him in those (attacking) areas and he did his part, so I’m pleased,” said Magilton.
“Of course it is (tempting to leave him on) but he was spent and had given his everything. He scored two goals, so we’re going to need him next week and to be fair Danny Allsopp can give us a lot of fresh impetus from the bench.”
