Newcastle Jets coach Gary van Egmond has expressed his disappointment after a late penalty allowed the Wellington Phoenix to snatch a draw in their round seven Hyundai A-League fixture at EnergyAustralia Stadium on Monday.
The defending Hyundai A-League champions had worked hard to comeback from a goal down after Shane Smeltz had converted a penalty in the 51st minute. Jets defender Tarek Elrich curled a 25-yard shot on the hour mark before Kaz Patafta stroked home from close range to give the Jets a 2-1 lead with just over 20 minutes left in the match.
But with 90 seconds left on the clock the Phoenix were awarded another penalty when Leilei Gao was brought down by Matt Thompson in the area and Smeltz made no mistake with his second spot kick to see the points shared.
“At one stage there I thought we were going to be fine, but it wasn’t to be unfortunately,” said van Egmond after the match.
“It is frustrating. We’ve played here at home three times now and drawn all three times. I suppose the upside of it is that we scored two goals, but we’ve conceded two pens (penalties). If you want to be a serious challenger in this league you need to win your games at home.”
After a competitive first half where both sides had chances to score the Jets started to get on top with more possession in the midfield but were set back with the first penalty when Daniel Piorokowski felled veteran Vaughan Coveny.
“We copped a goal against the run of play with the first penalty,” said van Egmond.
“To the players’ good conviction we came back and scored and then scored another but unfortunately we copped another one at the end.”
The Jets went into the game with a number of fringe players getting their chance due to a high injury toll and while the coach was happy enough with their fervour he said there were still some failings in the Newcastle performance.
“I thought overall it was good, but in some other areas it wasn’t,” he said.
“When we didn’t have the ball our transition wasn’t good enough and we started to get over-run in the middle of the park.”
“To their credit their two wide boys probably cheated a little bit and didn’t go with players and when it broke down our side they obviously had numbers and looked dangerous.”
“Today was difficult we have got so many key players out – looking at the starting 11 with Joel and Adam Griffiths, James Holland and even Jason Hoffman, who has been starting, (all missing).”
“It is good that we have this little mini break so we can regroup and reassess and get over some injuries and look at to look recruitment in terms of an injury replacement for Jason, and we will go from there.”
