Dejected Melbourne Heart coach John van’t Schip believes his side deserved better after Saturday evening’s last gasp 3-2 loss to the Jets in Newcastle.
Dejected Melbourne Heart coach John van’t Schip believes his side deserved better after Saturday evening’s last gasp 3-2 loss to the Jets in Newcastle.
The Heart looked the better team early and had three clear cut chances on goal including a strong claim for a penalty when Newcastle goalkeeper Ben Kennedy appeared to bring down winger David Williams when he was put through on goal by Fred in the 13th minute.
The visitors eventually profited from their pressure when they deservedly went ahead in the 24th minute through a well-worked goal to Mate Dugandzic.
The Jets levelled six minutes later via an amazing curling free-kick from Ryan Griffiths and then took the lead right on the stroke of half-time when a Heart defensive lapse resulted in Griffiths poking home his second goal for the home side to take a 2-1 lead into the break.
Melbourne again had the better of play in the second half and levelled the scores early when Fred set up Dugandzic for his second goal in the 51st minute.
The Heart looked for the winner in the remaining minutes but just couldn’t capitalise on a number of good opportunities and it looked as if the match would finish 2-2 until Sung-Hwan Byun’s innocuous looking shot deflected off the back of Heart defender Michael Marrone and into the corner of the net for a lasp-gasp injury-time winner.
“If you concede a goal just before half-time and just at the end, it is (heartbreaking),” van’t Schip said after the match.
“The boys worked very hard. The second half we played much better than the first half, even though in the first half we had a few good opportunities as well, but the last pass wasn’t quite good enough or we had a chance on the break.”
“We deserved maybe more but that is not what it is all about. We have to be more professional and more mature in some situations and that is costing us two goals.”
Van’t Schip said he was pleased with the movement of his players up front including some threatening combinations involving Fred, Williams, Dugandzic and Jason Hoffman, but said his team needed to show more composure in the final third and in defence.
“That is what we tried to get in more – more mobility in the midfield and we got some good occasions with Fred getting two or three balls in between the defence and (Jason) Hoffman gave a good ball through for David Williams and there was one moment he passed the goalkeeper and it could have easily been a penalty,” the Heart coach said.
“We came up front one-nil. The free-kick was well taken but going behind just before half-time, that second goal was a little bit too easy – we gave it away.”
The Heart went into the match without a couple of their more inexperienced players including veteran goalkeeper Clint Bolton and were forced into blooding seven new players for their season-opening match.
While van’t Schip was pleased with his team’s first-up performance he agreed it would take some time for the squad to gel on the field.
“We are working on it every day but with Clint (Bolton) not able to play, getting injured on Tuesday and a few other players still to come back it is not as though we wanted to put on so many new players but we had to look at who is fit and who is able to play and then we make a choice,” he said.
“This was our team today and I think we did very well – we had a lot of young players on the pitch and it was good for them to get to get A-League experience but at the end you want to win and that didn’t happen for us today.”
