Sydney FC coach John Kosmina said he was pleased to come away from Saturday night’s ‘heartfelt’ 0-0 clash with Newcastle at EnergyAustralia Stadium with a point.
Both Sydney and Newcastle had genuine goal scoring opportunities in the first half while the Jets got on top of the sky blues in the second half but Sydney defended gamely and held on for a draw.
“It is always good to come here and come away with something,” Kosmina said.
“But having said that I think we dropped our intensity in the second half. I think in the first half we didn’t get out of second gear and we still played some really good stuff.”
“We were unlucky not to have gone ahead, we got into some good positions. But it was the first time that Johnny (Aloisi), Brosque and Bridgey have actually played together – you can practice it at training but doing it in the match is another thing.”
“I was happy that Johnny got through 90 minutes and I was happy that Popa (Tony Popovic) got through 90 minutes as well. And it was another game we didn’t concede and we played some really good stuff and came away with a point. So from a football progression, I am really happy.”
The Sydney coach said his side was ‘unlucky’ not to open the scoring in the first half but conceded Newcastle showed more desperation in the second half but he was more than pleased with the gritty defensive effort of his side to hang on for a draw.
“I think Newcastle picked up their intensity – they had a real go but we defended well, exceptionally well,” he said.
“We got people into good areas and didn’t really let them in behind and we showed a lot of desperation in the penalty area. But then Bridgey and Brosque weren’t doing the tracking they were doing in the first half so there was a little bit of a gap between our front three and our midfield and they were a bit more desperate then we were and that is understandable coming from where they come from. So for us it was a good point, I was happy with it.”
“Stuie and Bridgey copped a bit of stick, Bridgey especially – which I can’t understand because he won the city, not just the club, a Grand Final. It would have been nice if Bridgey scored – sometimes it is nice to shove back up the ones that shove it up you.”
“The longer you go on without scoring it gives the opposition more hope and I think that is what happened tonight. If we had of got one early I think the floodgates would have opened. But the longer the game went on the more confident Newcastle became and that showed up in the performance.”
“We have played four games now and we are second in the league, we’ve got eight points and we didn’t concede tonight. We earned our point from a defensive point of view.”
Kosmina also played down the spate of yellow cards and the sending off of Mitchell Prentice late in the match for two reckless challenges, describing the incidents as ‘unlucky’ and ‘naïve’ and match as an ‘intense but fair’ affair.
“The game wasn’t spiteful at all,” said Kosmina.
“His (Prentice’s) first yellow I think he was a bit unlucky, to be honest and the second one I think he was just naïve because he was committed to winning the ball.”
In addition, recent Newcastle signing Daniel Piorkowski was also forced from the field with a bleeding mouth that later required some dental work and three stitches after collecting an elbow from Sydney striker John Aloisi.
Newcastle coach Van Egmond said he thought the incident looked fairly ‘innocuous’ and revealed that Aloisi had come to the Newcastle dressing room after the match to apologise for the clash and to check up on the welfare of the Newcastle defender, who was only signed to the club on a short-term injury contract late this week.
Kosmina agreed that the incident was worse than it looked.
“That (the elbow to Piorkowski) was right in front of us and I was surprised when Daniel came off with a bleeding mouth. I thought Daniel had just gone into his shoulder, I didn’t know it was an elbow.”
