Clint Bolton says he was loving the atmosphere of the big moment when he made his match-saving, injury-time penalty save in Melbourne Heart’s draw with Brisbane Roar on Friday night.
Clint Bolton says he was loving the atmosphere of the big moment when he made his match-saving, injury-time penalty save in Melbourne Heart’s draw with Brisbane Roar on Friday night.
A resurgent second half effort from the visiting Heart yielded an early equaliser and a split share of the chances thereafter, but when Besart Berisha was brought down in the penalty area by a sloppy Simon Colosimo challenge, it looked certain they would be going home without a point.
Bolton had been making saves since the second minute of the Suncorp Stadium clash and had the form and fortune to spoil the Roar’s party, palming away a hard drive from Mohamed Adnan to rescue the 1-1 draw and cap off a fine performance between the sticks.
“When the pen is given away in injury time the first thought is that we’ve just thrown this one away; we’ve worked hard to get in position – we had a really good chance to go up 2-1 through Eli (Babalj) – so it just felt like we’d just thrown it away,” said Bolton.
“But then you just refocus… your head gets back to business and you start figuring how do I get into his head and figuring the best way to approach the pen.”
“It’s the big occasion and it’s on his back, the pressure is on him, I just have to do my best to get a hand on it and if I don’t nobody remembers that. I love the big occasion, I love the big moment and that felt like a finals type atmosphere in that final 10 minutes.”
Coach John van’t Schip commended his troops for a sterling effort against the side that he still regards as the best in the Hyundai A-League and favourites for the championship.
Having recomposed from a scattered first half hour to equalise and match firepower with the Roar in the second half, the Melbourne Heart coach was regarding the performance as a step in the right direction.
“I think it was an intensive game, both sides creating chances, a very open game. We started a bit low and had some problems managing to close it down at times, but I think after the goal we started getting more into the way we wanted to do it,” he said.
“We started very well in the second half, created chances like we did also in the first half, and they played their game and created their chances as well.”
“I think if you take (the penalty save) away, it was a very deserved draw with maybe even more in it for us looking at the second half and the chances we had.”
“We’re very happy with the way we performed and we’ll take it with us into the next game coming up.”
