Jets coach Branko Culina believes Newcastle deserved to win Wednesday night’s Hyundai A-League match against competition leaders the Brisbane Roar at EnergyAustralia Stadium.
The Jets dominated proceedings, especially in the first half, and ended the game having 19 shots on goal compared to the Roar’s eight but Brisbane was able to capitalise on a lapse in concentration to grab an 80th minute equaliser via substitute striker Jean Carlos Solorzano after a Ben Kantarovski header had given the home side the lead just after half-time.
“I am probably disappointed for the players because I think we deserved the three points tonight,” Culina said after the match.
“It is probably not going to get the respect and attention that is deserves because it is not the three points. Had it been the three points people would have taken more notice.”
“But we know we are a good football team, we know we are doing the right things and we know we belong further up the table.”
Culina was noticeably upset on the sidelines after the Roar goal as he believed there more than a hint of offside about the run of Ivan Franjic, who eventually sent in the cross for Solorzano to tap in, but the Jets boss said he had seen the replays and realised it was a fair call from the linesman.
“It looked offside from my angle but I have since been told it wasn’t offside, so you have got to accept it,” he said.
“Again it is a hard pill to swallow and you would expect a bit of luck to go your way.”
“The assistant was in the clear so let’s not use that as an excuse. The fact is he did his job and it was deemed the correct one. But I think there were some other opportunities that we had that probably deserved a little bit more luck.”
Jets midfielder Kasey Wehrman echoed Culina’s disappointment and said while the defensive lapse cost them the win it was also a failing of the Jets’ forward line, who had a number of chances to seal the match.
“We played them off the park really so it was disappointing that we let them in there and give them such a soft goal. A little bit more knowledge there and it could have been stopped pretty easily,” Wehrman said.
“The other disappointing point was that we had enough chances to put them away. We could have killed them off three or four times.”
Despite feeling as if they had thrown away two points Culina said the Jets would take plenty of confidence from the performance against the benchmark team of the season.
“The commitment was superb and the football was fantastic and that is why I am disappointed for them,” he said.
“We really worked hard and we believed that we would get the three points – there was no question about that – we believed in it and we backed ourselves up.”
“They (Brisbane) are a very good side obviously the table doesn’t lie but for us to go out and play like we did against them will give us a lot of confidence and we will learn from that.”
