Sydney goalkeeper Clint Bolton celebrated his 34th birthday in style with two outstanding saves to help his team remain unbeaten following Saturday’s scoreless draw with the Central Coast Mariners in Gosford.
Bolton pulled off a penalty save from Adam Kwasnik in the 90th minute and then denied Dylan Macallister with another outstanding low save two minutes later as a disappointing contest came to life in the final 15 minutes.
Bolton was delighted with his two match-winning contributions after having little to do for most of the match at Bluetongue Stadium.
“I was confident I was going to save it,” Bolton said of Kwasnik’s penalty.
“I was very happy with the second save. It would have been disappointing to save the penalty and then lose the match with another goal.”
“I’m very happy.”
Sydney coach Vitezslav Lavicka paid tribute to his shot-stopper after the match.
“Clint was man of the match,” he said.
“We were close to a win but close to a loss as well.”
For the second week in a row Mariners coach Lawrie McKinna felt his side dropped two points.
“Over the 90 minutes a draw is a fair result but after getting two chances like that it’s two points lost,” he said.
Defence was a major problem for the Mariners during a horror end to last season but the second week in succession Central Coast looked strong at the back.
Captain Alex Wilkinson said his side’s biggest problem was retaining possession.
“We can’t keep giving the ball away,” he said.
“We were pretty flat in the first half and kept giving them the ball but we can take some positives out of it. In the end a draw was probably a fair result.”
