A gracious Mark Milligan has played down the controversial late incident which appeared to cost his team dear in Roar’s 1-0 Semi-Final win over Victory.
A gracious Mark Milligan has played down the controversial late incident which appeared to cost his team dear in Brisbane Roar’s 1-0 A-League semi-final win over Melbourne Victory.
An exhausted Victory dug deep to mount a late rally in a tense contest at Suncorp Stadium, where Milligan was felled inside the area by Roar defender Matt Smith with the clock running down.
Referee Strebre Delovski was unmoved by the away team’s appeals for a penalty, despite Kevin Muscat’s men appearing to have a strong case.
Speaking to Fox Sports after the game, Victory captain Milligan sought to highlight his team’s failure to carve out more opportunities earlier in the game.
“I thought there was contact, I’ll be honest,” he said.
“I stepped around him, maybe it was unsighted. I don’t know. They’re ones that sometimes you get, sometimes you don’t, I guess.
“We can’t let everything hang on that, we needed to create more chances during the match. I think we maybe left our run a little bit too late.”
Milligan paid tribute to Mike Mulvey’s premier’s plate winners, who will now contest the grand final with Western Sydney next Sunday.
“They’ve been the outstanding team all year, we knew it was going to be tough,” he said.
“They’ve produced a great crowd and they’re a very good footballing side. We gave it everything.”
It was a disappointing end to a difficult week for Victory, who also bowed out of the AFC Champions League on goal difference after a 0-0 draw away to Jeonbuk Motors on Tuesday.
“This team, I’m very proud of this team,” Milligan said.
“They’ve got a lot of ticker. It’s a very hard place to come and we fought admirably, I thought. We fought right to the death.
“We probably created more chances in the last five minutes than we probably did in the other 85. I can’t ask any more of them.”
