Wellington Phoenix skipper Andrew Durante described Sunday’s 1-1 Hyundai A-League draw with the North Queensland Fury as one of the toughest results he has had to stomach in his career.
The Phoenix took the lead in the sixth minute thanks to a Leo Bertos strike and looked on course for their second win of the season until Chris Grossman slotted home the equaliser deep into injury-time at Westpac Stadium.
It left Wellington with its fourth draw in seven games and third in as many weeks.
Durante was still dejected long after the final whistle.
“It’s gut-wrenching. It’s one of the toughest results I’ve ever had to walk off the field with. It’s tough,” he said.
“There’s been a lot of talk in the press about us keeping a clean sheet and to miss out on it by 30 seconds is very tough to swallow.”
“We worked so hard throughout the whole game and I don’t believe they deserved to draw at all.”
Unfortunately for Wellington, its wastefulness in front of goal once again came back to haunt it.
Daniel missed two clear-cut chances – one at the far post in the first half where the ball bobbled against his legs and somehow trickled past the post and another early in the second spell where Scott Wilson got a foot to it right on the line when keeper Paul Henderson was beaten.
Tim Brown also forced a good save from Henderson, while late in the game Michael Ferrante blasted over the crossbar.
They were misses Durante was left to rue after he and Ben Sigmund had kept danger man Robbie Fowler quiet for most of the game.
“It was a good experience to play against someone like that. It’s something I’ll remember but it would have been good to get the result,” said Durante of his tussle with the former England and Liverpool striker.
“We’ve got to put our chances in the back of the net at the other end. It takes a bit of pressure off the defence.”
“We’ve got to finish teams off and be more clinical. We’re not creating chances that are 30m shots and being tipped over the bar. It’s in the six yard box that we’re missing chances and we’ve really got to fix that up.”
Fury coach Ian Ferguson admitted to giving his side a revup at half-time and felt it had been lucky only to be trailing 1-0 at the break.
“I wasn’t pleased with them at half-time and I let them know we were too far off the pace. We were backing off people and giving them time to turn and play the ball,” the Scotsman said.
“Losing goals at set pieces is not good. We’ve been working really hard all week with our back four at set pieces but yet again there was a goal.”
“Credit to the boys though they bounced back and after half-time I felt they came out the better team, the sharper team.”
Ferguson also felt the equaliser, which resulted from a Fowler free-kick, was as much to do with the wiliness of his star striker as it had been Grossman’s effort.
“I was screaming for him (Fowler) to put it in the air because we had our big units up there,” he said.
“But he’s actually been clever and because there’s that many bodies in there you get a couple of ricochets and that’s what happened.”
“He’s hit it with power, it’s bobbled about and Grossman has scored and it’s that little bit of luck we need and we’ve deserved it.”
